


What A Girl Needs

by goatovaries



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom, Tom Hiddleston RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Consent, Depression, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Oral Sex, Romance, Sex, Shower Sex, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatovaries/pseuds/goatovaries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hadley has been through a lot the past few years. First her parents die then her boyfriend gets in a terrible accident which leaves him in a coma. Two years later, some suicide attempts, and a few psychiatric wards, everyone has given up on her until her Aunt decides it finally time to step in. She takes Hadley to London for a new start where she meets the undeniable Tom Hiddleston. She isn't interested, but Tom's willing to break though Hadley's hard exterior.<br/>Work Completed!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

January 28. Present.

I woke up screaming again. Tom was there; my screaming woke him up, but he didn’t mind. He never did. He simply sat up and told me to breathe. Told me that we were safe; that everything was okay; that nothing was hiding in the dark. For some reason I believed him. I laid back down after a few minutes. Still, my thoughts drifted to that time back in the abyss. Tom didn’t know why I woke up screaming, nor did he ask, knowing if I wanted to talk about it I would. Yet he still dealt with the fallout of all the things I had done and all of the things that had happened. He didn’t deserve that. He deserved someone who was mentally stable; who always was.  
Tom folded himself over top of me, kissing my neck, my ear, whispering sweet-nothings. I laid still. Staring at the ceiling with a blank expression on my face, I attempted to drive the memories that had awoken me out of my mind or at least back into the depths where I had placed them.  
“It’s okay, Love,” Tom whispered. “We are here. In your room. In your flat. Where nothing can harm you.”  
I wished I could say, No. That this place isn’t safe for me. It isn’t safe for anyone. He ignores the evil in this world. But I couldn’t explain that feeling to him. So I kept quiet and let him do what he thought I wanted. What he thought would make me feel better.  
And it did in a way, just knowing that he cared, but honestly nothing was going to help. I was a grenade. Time was ticking down for me to explode and destroy everything in my wake.  
He tried to wait for me to fall back asleep, but the melatonin ecstasy overwhelmed him. Yesterday, had him doing multiple photo shoots and interviews. These days it tired him out. I hated how my night terrors disturbed his slumber. He needed it more than I did. Gods know, how many nights I’ve spent awake. How many years I’ve gone without closing my eyes. Doctors would dane to wonder how I was still alive, if only they knew. This was just another in an endless line of sleepless nights.  
Eventually, I turned to face him, placing my forehead against his and focusing on the outlines of his eyelids. I knew them so well by now. Breathing in his scent, I closed my eyes. He smelled of lavender and honey, like the wildflower fields of my youth. Memories of Benjamin and I flooded back. I felt his hot breath on my neck as he dug into my skin and pulled layers of blue and yellow from the earth to paint my breasts. Those intimate moments, the ones I remember now are so fleeting. Everything else, so much has happened since then that, I forget. Those times are clouded by anger and hate and betrayal. The sound of death that comes through the background.  
Benjamin. I miss him. Everything reminds me of him.  
I dreamed of Benjamin. I wasn’t asleep, but my memories came like visions and he was there beside me if only for a few moments. He was the only one who could grant me any true solace. For that I am sorry, Tom. I can’t help it.

The morning came in with an even harshness, flooding in through the windows on either side of the bed. Tom stirred, but did not wake up. Sunshine played tricks with his bone structure. One minute his face seemed fractured by highlights; the next tempered in shadow. I traced the lines on his bare chest, as I waited for an alarm to go off. Perhaps his or mine, or due to some unlucky corpse halfway gone before the ambulance could get there.  
Soon his eyes fluttered open, met first with sunlight he squinted, then he found my face.  
“Good morning, Love. How are you?” His voice came out, not Benjamin’s. My face shone in disappointment I didn’t even realize I was feeling. “What’s the matter?”  
“Nothing. Just tired.”  
“Didn’t sleep again?”  
“No, but I’m used to it.”  
“One day you won’t have to be.”  
I smiled, barely, “One day,” and stared once again, blankly, at the ceiling; at the stars I’d painted up there to remind me of home.  
“For now,” he said, “perhaps we should try to get you awake and ready for today. You have a busy schedule.” He rolled up onto his elbow and began nuzzling my neck, speaking between kisses.  
“You have no idea what I’m doing today,” I sighed, sitting up, “you just assume I’m busy because Adam called me last night during sex and I told you I had to take it.”  
“It’s a valid assumption. By the way we never finished that.” He looked up at me from the sheets, pleading for me to come back down to him.  
“You did,” I said.   
“You didn’t.”  
He sat up, realizing that I wasn’t going to lay back down and took my face into his hand. “Please, Hadley, I want you to finish.” He brought our faces together, lips meeting. His kisses felt like he hadn’t touched another’s in a hundred years. I’ve been there before I would know. They were famished and burning.  
I sat there as he played with my lips, toyed with my neck then let him lie me down. Taking my shirt off on the way there, he straddled my hips. I was neutral about what was happening. I wanted it, but didn’t really care either way. Sex for me had become dispassionate most of the time. Used more as a way to forget or as a distraction than anything else anymore. I wish things were more than black or white these days. I tried, though, for him.  
“Are you okay with this?” He asked.  
“Yes,” I replied.  
I kissed him back, then ran my fingers down his sides as he slowly worked his way down my body. Nipples hardening, sweat forming, hair raising; he took his time with me. On each part of my body teaching it how to get there, showing it when to plateau. He pulled down my panties last. Slowly, letting the fabric scratch my legs.  
The sun tried to ignore us, but its rays brightened everything in the room, haloing Tom’s face. He smiled. I imagined him thinking up some cheesy line such as, you are my sunshine, then deciding not to say it.  
He rubbed my thighs with vigor, fast then slow, then hard and soft. My nerves tingled. Blood rushed onto the scene my inner thighs flushed red. Spreading my legs wide for him, he breathed into me. My heartbeat fled to every corner of my body, it raced. The bed rocked slightly.  
Tom’s tongue flicked at my vulva, his breath was so hot against my skin. He went slowly, gradually getting me into it. He kissed along the outside then the inside, working around my vagina with his tongue and mouth. I let a moan escape. Then another. The scruff on his cheeks scratched at my thighs.  
The alarm on his phone screeched. I slid it off, automatically.  
I grabbed at his hands, flowing up and down my legs. Scratching his fingers, up his arms and shoulders, I felt his muscles moving in a rhythm only we knew. My own fingers scoured his hair for telltale signs of our past.  
“I’m almost ready.”  
“I know. I feel you,” he said. Pausing only for a second, but I missed his warmth immediately. The next breath took absolutely forever to come.  
He pulled one arm away and the hand disappeared beneath his mouth. Fingers pressed at my labia. A tongue lapped around my clitoral hood. I moaned again, hips moving with a consciousness of their own. I wanted more. It was all I dared to think about. Tom was all I wanted to think about.  
Two fingers went in just as his tongue rubbed over my clitoris. I gasped. My phone buzzed. He put another finger in. The air was pungent. He sucked in little bursts. Pulled his fingers in then out. Faster and slower. My hips moved. I moaned, urging on his rhythm. I was in this now. I was there. I forced myself into climax. I wanted it so badly. Tom patiently waited for me to come. He didn’t have to wait long.  
My phone buzzed again. A text.  
He paused for barely a second. I noticed it anyway, but held climax. He helped by pushing his fingers in faster. I moaned, letting out a heavy-handed sigh.  
I reached haphazardly over to my phone, tugging it out of its charger. A text from Adam, Do you two mind? He was out in the kitchen. At first I was annoyed that he was here this early, but then I glanced at the clock. Half past nine.  
“It’s Adam. He’s here,” I breathed between flashes.  
Tom slowed his pace, then removed his fingers and looked up at me. “Shower first. Adam can wait until then.” He kissed my nose.  
“Okay.”  
He stood up, taking me with him, my legs wrapped around his waist. They still tingled with arousal. Kissing my ear he took us into the bathroom that adjoined my bedroom. He fumbled with the door handle; I kissed at his jawline.  
I held onto his waist as he slipped off his pajama bottoms and walked the pair of us into the shower. I stepped down and suddenly felt the cool tile beneath my feet. I twisted on the shower. Water dripped out slowly, and then all at once. After washing my hair and his we held each other, embraced in the warmth of the water and of each other. His strong arms were around me and his chin rested on my head.  
“I love you,” Tom said. It seemed almost offhand, but I didn’t know. How could I…? I didn’t want to hurt him.  
“I uhh...” my phone saved me. This time it rang loudly from the bedroom. More than a text he was calling me as he stood in my own kitchen. “That would be Adam. We’ve had him waiting long enough.”  
“Of course.”

 

 

  
June 7. Two years before.

 

“Hads!” He screamed, because doing anything else would waste precious time. I was already in the middle of the road. I was already gone. There was nothing to do at this point. I was going to die. All I had done was get out of the car and close the door. The road was empty a second ago.  
The Truck driver laid on his horn. Something was wrong with it. Truck lights don’t flash that much for no reason.  
He ran around the car. Benjamin, I called, but no words came out. He was closing in. Faster than the truck. I didn’t even know he could run that fast. Benjamin. He pulled me out of the way. I fell to the ground several feet away out of the truck’s path, but he—he was still there.  
“Ben!”

I don’t remember the ride to the hospital. I’d hit my head somewhere along the way and passed out. I don’t remember much until there were lights in my eyes and machine whirring’s over my head. “Ben. Ben,” I said. “Is he okay?”  
“You’re the one we’re working on right now, honey,” she said. “I’ll check on your friend when I know you’re okay.”  
I was okay.  
My ankle was broken.  
My best friend. My boyfriend. He might never wake up again. Even if he did. He wouldn’t be the same.

 

  
January 23. Present.

I grabbed a shirt and underwear from the floor and shook out my hair in a towel. I walked out of the bathroom and down the stairs where Adam waited for me in the kitchen. A trail of water droplets behind me.  
“You do realize that I can hear you from here,” he said pouring a freshly made pot of coffee into cups. I stood across from him and leaned on the kitchen counter with both elbows.  
“That’s not my problem. It’s my house.”  
“Whatever. You should tell him that his assistant is waiting outside. He doesn’t want to come in. Feels it would be impolite.” Adam handed me a cup of the coffee. One of three he had prepared.  
“As opposed to my Aunt’s, who waits in the kitchen,” I whispered.  
“What?”  
“And I’m sure you told him he could,” I said, raising an eyebrow.  
“What kind of person would I be if I didn’t?”  
“I’m also sure you got his number for more than work reasons.”  
“You are always my first priority.”  
“Sure,” I grinned, “I’ve seen him. I’m not blind.”  
“You keep me more than busy.”  
Tom came down the stairs in sweat pants and a white t-shirt. Dew still holding onto his hair, making it dark with moisture. He kissed my cheek as he passed me, “Hello again,” he grinned and skirted around the island to the refrigerator.  
Adam cleared his throat, “Thomas.”  
“Adam, you alright?” Tom flashed him a smile.  
“Yes, thank you. Would you like a cup of coffee?”  
“That sounds terrific, thank you.” Tom grabbed one of the cups in front of Adam.  
“By the way, your assistant is standing outside.”  
“Luke?” He put down the cup and fluttered around the island out of the kitchen toward the front door. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

“He doesn’t like me,” Adam said when he saw Tom and Luke talking just at the front door. I glanced behind me at Luke in the doorway and Tom telling him he could come in. Luke seemed impatient. I caught his eye for only a moment as he nodded no.  
“He likes you fine. You’re the one who’s so curt with him,” I yawned.  
Adam didn’t say anything for a second, instead he investigated me with one quick look. “He’s told you he loves you. Hasn’t he?” Adam said. I looked away and took a sip of coffee. “I can see it written all over your face.”  
I said nothing.  
He sighed, “Are you going to see Benjamin? I heard he woke up.”  
“No.”  
“Are you planning too?”  
“I dunno.”  
“Are you planning on telling him you love him back?”  
I shrugged.  
“What about William? How long has it been since you’ve talked to him?”  
“A while. I guess.”  
“Your brother?”  
“Last month.”  
“Did you sleep last night?”  
“No. So?”  
“Hadley,” he sighed, “I don’t know what you expect me to do for you? You are acting like a teenager. You should be old enough now to get past this.”  
“I don’t expect you to do anything. I never have.”  
“Hadley,” Adam yearned.  
“Age doesn’t automatically equal wisdom. It means I’ve messed up a lot and I’m still figuring out the consequences. Leave me alone about it.”  
“You should talk to someone.”  
“All the Someone’s I had left or died.”  
“That’s—not”  
Tom walked back in. Luke didn’t join him.  
“I’ve got to go,” Tom said sadly. “Something’s come up.”  
“Okay,” I replied, taking another drink of coffee.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”  
“Yeah.” There wasn’t enough enthusiasm in that statement. None at all really.  
I felt Tom sigh in the space beside me. I saw the question in his eyes, wondering what he had done wrong. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was last night. It was the call I said was from Adam that wasn’t. It was things that I couldn’t explain and didn’t actually want to try.  
Tom kissed my cheek tenderly, “I’ll call you.”  
I didn’t react early enough. He was walking away by the time I said, “Okay.”

“Is there something you need,” I asked Adam after a bit. Hoping the disappointment on his face would eventually fade. It didn’t.  
“Besides the fact that I am trying to be your Aunt’s assistant, I’m also your babysitter. William said it’s getting close to that time; when you and Benjamin—”  
“Yes, I’m aware.”  
“And he knows that this was a very delicate time for you.”  
“He asked you to check on me.”  
“He’s worried.”  
“Everybody is.” I sat my cup down on the counter with a clink and turned to go upstairs.  
“Hadley,” Adam called after me, “He has every reason too. You’re distancing yourself again.”  
“I’m fine. Leave me alone. Don’t you have something better to do?”  
“Yes, and it would be a lot easier if you would cooperate, instead of acting like a brooding teenager.”  
“I was born in 1993. I am not very far from it,” I yelled from the top of the stairs. Adam huffed. Sometimes I felt bad that he was basically my very own sheepdog, sent to reign me in, because most of the time he was the only one I would regularly see. He had no baggage coming with him. He was Adam. He knew what I was, but I didn’t know what he was. I left it that way, because it was better. No tangles to get caught up in. Simple.

 

 

June 7. Two years before.

“Benjamin, I’m so sorry,” I said as I smelled the gasoline fumes leaking from my car. I moved the airbag from out of my face with the one arm that I could move. Was this what it was like for him? The impact. I didn’t do this on purpose, honestly. I was just driving and then the telephone pole was cracked in half on top of my car. The live wires sparked out from behind me, somewhere. “I should be more careful.”  
Sirens were already coming. This was a main road. People lived in the development. They surely saw it happen. Their power probably went out.   
Someone was outside the car yelling at me. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of there.”  
They pulled at the latch. It was stuck. “Watch your eyes.” They went for the window. I closed my eyes. No need to bother with anything else. Their voice came more clearly this time, “It’s okay. The ambulance is coming. I just need you to stay with me. Stay awake.”  
Ha. If only they knew. I hadn’t slept in three days and in decreasing intervals for the past five months. I can stay awake. All I have to think about is Benjamin suffering and I can stay awake.   


 

January 23. Present.

I heard Adam shuffling around downstairs, making himself at home as always. I imagined he was spreading out his papers right now, to do his actual work as assistant to my fifty year old Aunt, the only living relative I had. She was the editor-in-chief for London Vogue. As her only heir and completely disinterested Niece, she had announced a weak attempt in “guardianship” over me. Where she sent her newly appointed second assistant to keep tabs and ultimately try to get me to finish college. Honestly, the poor guy wanted to learn about fashion now he’s got me on his hands. Adam would work there in the kitchen surrounded by the orange and yellow walls, waiting for me to do whatever rogue thing I decided to do next and hoping that it wasn’t anything too serious. After everything I had been putting the guy through, though, he never did tell my Aunt about Tom. I really respected him for that. I tried to be considerate since I realized it.

Back in my room, I scoured the area for a hair tie and found a few blending into the wooden floors. I roughly put my short blonde hair into a ponytail, accidently looking into the mirror standing lone in the corner. All that looked back was sorrow wrapped in a blank expression and a marriage of battle scars. Pock marks from the hot plastic that had stained my cheeks still lingered. They’d never go away completely, mistaken for freckles as Tom thought they were and Adam, just because he didn’t know. I’d gained a new scar too. Just a small one, but it cut the jawline in half on the left side of my face. I didn’t expect it to go away. They never did.  
I took out of pair of black leggings and a blue blouse from the closet, then pulled on my tan knee high boots, added my favorite admiral’s jacket and trotted down the steps. Halfway down I remembered I’d left my phone on the nightstand and went back up to grab it. A message flashed on the mock iPhone’s screen. I turned it over, Delta symbol out, and dropped it into my jacket pocket.   
“You going somewhere?” Adam asked amid a pile of papers, photographs, and a freshly made omelet, he had already eaten a third of.   
“Dunno.”  
“Do you think you could make some time in your busy schedule for lunch with your Aunt? She wants to see how you’re doing. Also, I’ve got some colleges for you to look through.”  
“Yeah, whatever. Put it into the calendar on my phone. I’ll be there.”  
“Also, I got you a ticket to the states if you want to go see Benjamin.” He handed me a piece of paper from the pile as he typed a reminder into his phone. It had a plane ticket registration printed onto it.  
“I wasn’t.”  
“You were, eventually, and anyway you need too. Might as well not have you go through more trouble than you’re capable of.”  
“Thanks,” I took the paper from him.  
“And you shouldn’t keep leading Tom on.”  
“I’m not.”  
He looked up at me from his phone. Adam wasn’t much older than me, but I always felt like a disobedient child when he gave me that look. I was taller than him normally, let alone when he was slouched over the counter. So, it wasn’t hard for him to throw shade whenever he felt like it, which happened to be most of the time. “Anyone who is having sex with you is being led on.”  
“I’m too tired to tell you to fuck off.”  
He went back to working, “You are welcome.” I chose to ignore him.  
I took my bag from the chair and slung it over my shoulder then walked out the door onto the London streets. I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere so I put my headphones in and walked toward the tube station. I rode the central line until I got bored staring at the walls. Then when the Piccadilly. I got off at the station for the Circus and walked up to Trafalgar Square and decided to go into the Art Museum there. I wondered around for probably two hours, got something to eat at the café, and then wandered around for a few hours more. I didn’t really look at anything. It all went straight through me.   



	2. Chapter 2

July 16. Six months before.

My aunt came the whole way from London the third time I tried to kill myself. The second time I and the Doctor assured her that I would be okay. I wasn’t. She got me a new Doctor.   
The first time she didn’t even know about. Only Benjamin knew about that; it was after my parents died.   
The last time my Aunt had seen me was at my parent’s funeral five years ago, her sister’s funeral. Back then you couldn’t see my scars, now they were all I was.

I had been in Seattle Grace General Hospital’s psychiatric ward for nearly three months when she came to get me out. That Doctor decided it was time. Told me she was taking me somewhere different. Somewhere I could start over.   
I could see the pity in her eyes from the moment she saw my slender frame. She glanced at the pock marks on my face. Plastic burns that looked like freckles now, but originally from the fire that took my parents and almost me. Tupperware was a permanent part of me now. Benjamin and I used to laugh about that. Those days seemed so long ago now.  
“Oh, honey,” she sighed with her learned accent. She put a hand to my face and wiped at my marks with her thumb. “I’m so sorry all of this happened to you.”  
I said nothing. I didn’t care where I went or what happened anymore.  
“I want you to come back to London with me for a while. I think it will be good for you.”  
I said nothing.  
“Is that okay with you, honey? If it’s not we can figure something else out.”  
“It’s fine.”  
“She’ll need a Doctor in London,” my doctor said. He was standing in the doorway. He was just waiting for me to do something. They always did, but I never did. Only when they tried to put needles in me. “Let me know and I can send over the paperwork on her. Her medication will need adjusted as time moves on.”  
“Okay, thank you.” My Aunt replied.  
“Here’s a paper of things you may need to watch out for in regards to suicidal behavior.” He handed a sheet to her. She nodded. “She is going okay now, but we always like to be sure. She’s been through a lot and may never truly get over it. Depression is a lifelong disease.”  
Disease? It isn’t something you catch on the street.  
“Yes, I understand.”  
“Also,” he lowered his voice, “I would suggest not leaving her by herself. She seems fit on ending it.”  
He was an idiot. I wasn’t anymore. It was already over. I had to suffer just like Benjamin was, which for me meant living.  
We walked out of that hellhole together. She mentioned how she liked my tattoos, they really fit me or something. That was about the end of trying to converse. She went and bought me a bunch of new clothes. I packed up all my stuff and we got on the next flight to London. I slept the entire plane ride and I finally dreamed about something other than an encroaching darkness. Instead, I didn’t dream at all. A welcome relief. I hated dreams.   
My Aunt lived in a small loft. She had never needed anything else. Most of her time was spent elsewhere. But when I came into the picture she decided that I would need something bigger. So she bought a house, but kept her apartment. Oddly, for someone so interested in fashion she didn’t care much for interior design. She had the whole thing painted white.  
She never spent the night at the house. If she could help it she never came over. Not after the first few months. Adam said he heard she cried a lot when I first came to live with her. She’d come into work, sit at her desk and then just burst out into tears. I liked the house to myself anyway.  
Eventually, everyone learns I’m not worth it.

 

 

January 23. Present.

When I had finally seen everything the museum had to offer, which wasn’t much, I left. There was a Waterstone’s nearby so I went in there and grabbed a book off the shelves. Something about two kids with cancer. It was popular so I figured what the hell. After buying it I went back down into the Tube and stayed there until I finished reading. The book was short and boring so it didn’t take long.   
Tom called when I was walking back home. He asked how my day was. He said I sounded tired.   
“You as well,” I replied.   
He laughed, “Yes. I am a bit.”  
“Did you take care of that thing with Luke?”  
“What?” Tom said, “Oh yes. Just a mix up with my schedule.”  
I got the feeling that wasn’t entirely true. I could tell when people are lying to me. You learn that when everyone around you is a Doctor. You are just a patient, an interesting case and they tiptoe around you. That was what Tom was doing to me right now. He doesn’t have to save my feelings. If anything, I try not to have any.   
“Well, I hope you got it fixed then.”  
“Yes.” We were silent for a few moments. The gap seemed deafening for him. He cleared his throat. “Are you busy tonight?”  
“Adam wants me to look at colleges.”  
“Okay, Love.”  
That was probably the softest excuse I could use. I just wasn’t feeling it tonight. I didn’t want to ignore him, but I just had no way of not. Benjamin was all I could think about and every time I was with Tom it got worse. Especially recently. I am so sorry. I can’t control myself and I wish I could. If only I could say that to him.   
“Do you want me to come over after?”  
“I’m really tired actually. Looking at colleges is only going to make it worse.”  
“I understand,” he said, “Have you any idea what colleges you may look at?”  
“No. I don’t really know anything about the British education system. I’ll probably just look for something to do with programing.”  
“If you need any help you know you can always ask. I’ve got to go, Love. I will talk to you tomorrow…” He stopped then. I got the feeling that he wanted to say he loved me but held himself back. Strange, he hardly ever held himself back.

 

 

October 3. Three months before.

Even when my Aunt started giving up on me, like everyone does, she made it look like she was still attempting. People do that once they’ve given up to disillusion themselves into thinking they haven’t. Or that they are still trying when in reality they’re not. They do it to make themselves feel better.   
This time she asked me to go along with her to one of her photoshoots. She ended up not even coming. One of the designers wanted her to look at his collection and this was the only time she could do it. She was only going to the shoot because of me. I was left with Adam. As per usual.   
Adam said the guy was really famous. I asked who. He said, “Tom Hiddleston.” I replied with a curt okay.  
Honestly, what did I care? I didn’t watch movies that much unless they were pretty indie or a documentary about technology or dying children. I believed in being well-rounded and knowing that my life could be worse. Even though, it was already pretty suck-ish. Life is Life.   
I sat on the director’s chair. Adam had commandeered it for me. As the Editor’s niece, I was apparently important. Everyone took large strides to stay away from me. They all knew that I had problems. They didn’t know what they were, but the fashion industry is heavy on face value. They best thing they could’ve done that day was leave me alone. It was coming up on the anniversary of my parent’s death. That was probably the entire reason my Aunt thought of this outing. To keep my mind off of it or something. Truthfully, my mind wasn’t on it until I walked out of the house. Inside, doing nothing, I also think of nothing. Going outside just puts my thoughts on overdrive. The world is way too stimulating. I see a car and I go back to everything. Wild flowers and I think of him. The sunset reminds me of the fire that burned down my family.  
“Here, I got you a latte,” Adam handed me a warm Starbucks cup. The stark studio was cold and the heat helped. Light streamed in from the windows. It was harsh to say the least. So, I stared at it. For Fall in London it was unusually bright out. The other assistants and design coordinators, the real director and photographers huddled in the corners of the room. Staying out of the sunlight, making sure their skin was kept white. They were ghosts of the industry, physically. I wouldn’t know literally, I mean they worked for Vogue, but I knew nil about fashion.   
A few even gave me sideways glanced. They wondered why I was here and why I was dressed like I didn’t care. Jokes on them, I guess, because I didn’t care at all. I had walked outside in a white muscle tee, skinny jeans, and converse. Adam had placed a long blue pea-coat over top of me before I could go far out of the house. I hadn’t even considered if it was cold outside. Previous to this I was only in London for six months. I was still trying to understand this weather which everyone said was rainy, but however was not. It rained more in Seattle and I was only there for three months.   
Seattle was the most weather filled city I had ever lived in. San Francisco was just foggy. All the time. And mostly hot, but the warm kind of hot where your ears feel heavy and you just want to lay outside in the grass to take a nap. San Francisco smelled like a clean musk of pine trees and wet dog. Oddly, I really liked the way it smelled. I grew up there so I guess I would.   
When we’d gotten to the studio Adam pulled a scarf off the racks of clothing meant for our celebrity guest and put it around my neck. He noticed the goosebumps racing up my arms before I even did. Adam was just one of those people who took care of you before you knew you needed it. I guess it was nice in a way.   
Tom Hiddleston finally showed up. He and his assistant were about five minutes late. I know this because he came up to me thinking I was the director and said, “Sorry, I’m a bit late. Traffic.”  
I pointed over to Frankie, the actual director. “You’re looking for him. Not me.”  
“What? Oh, dear. I am so sorry, darling, I thought—your chair says—”  
“Yeah, I know. It’s whatever,” I interrupted him. Why did he keep babbling and saying sorry? Like shut up. People make mistakes.  
“I’m sorry.”  
Frankie came over. “Tom! You’re here. I’m Frankie, I’m the director. Come meet the rest of the crew.”  
“Oh okay. It’s wonderful to meet you,” Tom said, smiling. No ounce of his demeanor seemed fake. All smiles the whole way to his eyes. He looked at me one more time before going off with Frankie, and grinned shyly.  
Adam came back over. He had been talking to one of the background models. “That was interesting,” he said meaning my encounter with Tom.  
I didn’t reply. I was trying to update the code on my phone. My messenger app kept crashing.   
“He smiled at you.”  
“He’s smiling at everyone.”  
Adam sighed, “I know you have a lot of sex, but I have no idea how. You are literally the least interactive person I know. Where do you find people that actually want that?”  
“People are attracted to people without personalities, because they can project whatever they want on them. I can be anybody without being anyone. Do you know how many people want no strings sex in this city?”   
“Sometimes I do worry if you’re a prostitute.”  
“If using sex to forget is prostitution than yes.”  
He sighed again, “I wonder about you and not just sometimes.”  
“Don’t bother. Why don’t you go do your actual job over there? Do something productive instead of trying to psychoanalyze me.”  
He nodded and walked away.

The shoot started. They had Tom in a myriad of positions, even pulling a bathtub out of somewhere. He was wet. He was dry. But the whole time he kept looking at me. About halfway through the shoot when it was obvious I wasn’t necessary to the production, he seemed to become even more interested in me. Especially the less interested I seemed in him or everything else for that matter. I don’t know what he found attractive in me. I was twenty-three. My hair was a muddy blonde and my eyes looked like fish scales. Was it the scars? Some people have kinks for that. I had met many of them.  
Adam would occasionally bring me more coffee or hot chocolate when it seemed that I had run out and I just sat there waiting for it to be over. A background model came over and talked to me for a bit. Her name was Lisa and she wondered what I was doing on my phone. What kind of phone I had, to be more specific. I told her I had created it myself out of iPhone and android parts as well as a motherboard I put together on my own. And at the moment I was fixing some of the bugs in its coding, which were basically just random things that bothered me. She thought it was really cool and asked if I was going to sell it.   
I said, “Probably not.”  
She, again, thought that it was really cool. I agreed with her.   
It was about noon and it was decided to break for lunch. After all the glances and halfway grins of confusion and intrigue, Tom finally came over to me.  
“Hullo. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Tom.”  
“Hadley.”  
“So, if you aren’t the director as your chair states, what do you do?”  
“Sit here. Be increasingly bored. I get paid ten pound an hour though so…”  
“Really?” he chuckled.  
“No. My Aunt made me come so I would leave the house and then she didn’t show up. I’m only here because Adam promised we’d go for desert after this.”  
As if on cue, Adam appeared with lunch for me. A ham and cheese croissant from Starbucks. I suspected he was pulling Starbuck out of his ass to be honest. “Thanks.”  
“Is this Adam?”  
“Yeah, Hullo.” They shook each other’s hands.   
“Hadley was saying the two of you were going for desert after the photoshoot?”  
“Yes. I did promise that,” Adam looked at me. “Have you decided what you wanted yet?”  
“Gelato, would be preferred.”  
Tom’s great smile that he started with started to fade as Adam and I talked. “You two seem very comfortable around each other,” he joked.   
Adam laughed at the irony, “I hardly notice. She’s a tough one to get to know.” He didn’t get it, what Tom was after.   
I did.  
“We aren’t dating.”  
They both mentally went “huh.”  
“Adam’s my Aunt’s assistant. Or more like my babysitter if you ask him.”  
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t,” Tom fell over his words.   
“It’s whatever. Anyway, would you like to join us for Gelato later?”  
Adam’s mouth nearly fell open, and then his expression turned to one of suspicion.   
Tom seemed very excited. “I would love to. If I’m not butting in or anything?”  
“Nah, it’s just gelato.” _What does that matter?_


	3. Chapter 3

January 23. Present.

When I got back to the house I entertained Adam with the idea that I was going to look at colleges. He showed me a few that had already accepted me. He did the grunt work and put my application into schools that were in London and close enough to commute to. My grades when I dropped out of Stanford were good, plus I had been going to Stanford, so a lot of places certainly wanted me. Some asked if there was a reason why I dropped out. Others wanted me more than they cared.   
“All of these have accepted you, but I think we should go see them and meet the faculty. You need to feel comfortable at this place or else I know you won’t go.”  
“Ok. Just put it into my calendar.”  
“Also I want to talk about maybe getting a job.”  
“What about it?”  
“I know we’ve discussed it before and you and your Aunt did when you first got here, but I think now you can do it. You’ve come a long way and your therapist says it’s not good for you to be sitting around the house all day.”  
“Okay.”  
“I’ve looked into some places around the area that you might be interested in and got applications that you should really be the one to fill out—wait, okay?”  
“Yeah, just give them here.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You are being very agreeable tonight.”  
“Adam, I don’t like fighting with you. You know that. And you’re not wrong.”  
“Does this have something to do with…?”  
“You can think that if you would like too.”  
He sighed. “There’s a coffee shop down the street, that café Montague you like, and a little bookshop that I got you applications for. You’ve worked before so I assume you have a resume?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Send it to me and I’ll update it for you.”  
“Is that it?”  
“Yes. Unless you have something else you want to discuss.” His left eyebrow raised in anticipation. He wanted me to talk about Tom.  
“I’m going to bed.”  
“Hadley…”  
“I’m tired.”

I didn’t sleep much.

 

 

December 2. One month before. 

I remember the first night Tom slept over. For some reason Adam had left me alone all that day. I hadn’t said anything too him. He only replied that he was busy when I asked. It made me nervous to think that he wasn’t going to be there in case I needed him. Why was I nervous? I had slept with plenty of other people since coming to London and none of them made me this…made me feel this kind of anticipation.   
He took me to a very nice restaurant that I wasn’t expecting. I only agreed to go on a date with him, because we had been spending a lot of time together just being around each other. Nearly three months of just hanging out. I think he sensed that if he wanted a real relationship with me that he would have to take it slow. I wouldn’t develop feelings if we took it fast, which is why I usually took it fast. I was not looking for a relationship, but Tom was just different from the beginning. He was trying to be my friend, without poking around in the stuff that I didn’t want to talk about.   
Dinner happened. It was nice, but I was uncomfortable around so many people that expected something out of me. There was a husband and wife next to us that looked at me every once in a while with an unhealthy glare, as if to say you are not posh enough to be here. Their voices lilting and loud, they spoke with the English accent of a high class libertarian. Every time I went to say something in my obviously lower class American accent the woman would look at me. It didn’t help that Tom didn’t tell me we were going to a five star restaurant and I looked like a hipster.   
Tom only asked me if I was okay once.  
“Are you feeling okay?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You sure, Hadley? You seem uncomfortable.”  
“Sorry,” I said shyly. “If I do it isn’t because of you.”  
He smiled. “Would you like any desert?”

I got the idea that we left the restaurant earlier than he had planned.   
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said as we strolled out of the restaurant.   
“Okay.”  
“There’s something I want to show you.”  
It was around six o’clock. The sun had already gone down and London was lighting up in its foggy winter way. Walking along the streets looking at the streetlamps, I felt blind. It didn’t help that it was starting to sprinkle and I was actually being blinded. My glasses caught every drop.   
“Here,” he tenderly took the glasses off my face with both hands. His fingers brushed against my face for a moment. They were softer than expected. He wiped my glasses off slowly with the clean part of his shirt. Then placed them back on my face. I just stood there a little stupefied. “Is that better?”  
“Yes. Thank you.”  
We went a ways further. He was gushing about Shakespeare. He was very passionate about him and it almost made me want to laugh. That was a new feeling for me. Benjamin was the last person that made me laugh. Him and this really weird white guy in the hospital who thought he was Bill Cosby. His real name was actually Randy.  
I yawned, uncontrollably.   
“Have you read any Shakespeare? I feel like I’m babbling and I suppose I shouldn’t if you don’t like Shakespeare. I’m sorry I should have asked.”  
“I’ve read all of it.”  
“All of it?”  
“Yeah, all of it. I got bored in the hospital and they had his entire works in their library. Read a lot of medical journals too.”  
“You were in the hospital?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Is it okay if I ask what happened?”  
“Umm…I tried to kill myself. A few times, actually. And my Doctor’s suggested that I should spend some time trying to get better. So, yeah. That’s why.”  
“I am so sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have asked.”  
“Tom, it’s okay. It isn’t a big deal.”  
“It is, Hadley. It is a very big deal. There are so many thing you could have missed out on had you gone through with it.”  
“I did go through with it Tom and I failed,” I said. “Actually, can we—talk about something else?”  
“Of course, I’m sorry.”

A few minutes later he said, “We’re here.”  
“Where?”  
“Oxford Street. Tonight they are turning on the lights for Christmas and I thought it might be something you would really like. I know you’ve said before that you hadn’t gotten to see London very much. Luckily for you this is the best time of year to see it.”  
“Christmas.”  
“Yeah.” His eyes lit up. He smiled with his teeth, happy, open, and excited.  
We stood along the side of the street staring in the same direction as a few hundred others all bundled up in their overcoats and scarves up to their faces. They had set up a small stage and a big screen so everyone could see. A famous personality was up there; someone from BBC news I couldn’t remember her name. She was introducing two other much more famous than her, “Hi, I’m Ed Sheeran. I am so glad to be here and flip the lights on in Oxford Street.” The city cheered. Teenage girls came from behind us to attack the throng of the crowd. Tom wrapped his arm around my waist to pull me out of the way. Once they passed by he went to move it but I put it back. He was keeping me contained. The only thing between me and falling over. I thought then that the last time I fell over Benjamin caught me. I had this overwhelming feeling that Tom would catch me too. I was scared but I didn’t want to let go.   
It was strange how the street added to my tunnel vision. The people all staring in one direction. The way the stores framed the road and took away the sky. If I were in a plane miles up from here, there were be a stark black and light pinwheel. I stood in the black and Tom, he stood in the white lights streaming out of H&M.   
Suddenly, there was a countdown and all I could see was the darkness above until…1.  
The strings of Christmas lights flipped on. I looked at Tom, but he was already looking at me. He said later that night while we were in bed that he wanted to see the look on my face when they turned on. I asked if it was worth it. He said, it was. Your eyes starting shining for a moment.  
“I want to kiss you,” I said.   
“I would like to kiss you too,” he said, “but I am not sure you really do want too.”   
“I do, Tom. I want to kiss you and I mean it.”  
He leaned down. I remember thinking how tall he was. How I was tall, but he was so much taller. Tom brushed his lips across mine. And thinking how much of an idiot I was for thinking that, but I hadn’t felt like wanting to kiss someone in a long time. His arms wrapped around me, I felt warmer automatically. I was at such a loss for him.   
We molded our lips together, tenderly.   
I think now that Tom was the first person since Benjamin to kiss me like I was fragile. I didn’t know I missed that. After losing Benjamin, I think I loathed to be kissed that way as if I was something to be fixed. I had no idea how much I craved a touch like this.   
Other couples in the crowd had followed our lead and taken to making out in the ambiance. Tom pulled away and smiled, “We’ve started a trend, darling.”  
I laughed and yawned, “’Maybe we can start another one.”  
“Huh?”  
“Will you take me home?”  
“Of course. Is everything okay? Are you tired?”  
“Yeah, I just want to be home.”   
The realization of people noticing us dawned on me. Until then I hadn’t thought of him as Tom Hiddleston, but some people seemed to start staring. I had had too many people staring at me in my life and it made me uneasy.  
He looked at me concerned, “Yes. Let’s go,” then took my hand in his.

Back at my house I was prepared for the door to be unlocked. For Adam to be hiding somewhere inside. Then, I had been drowning more and more into meaningless sex with men who didn’t know better and women who missed being so young and beautiful. Adam had been trying to thwart me. Wanting to curb my thirst for forgetting, yet this time he wasn’t there.   
“I should say goodnight to you here,” Tom told me at the door. He kissed me gently on the lips and began to leave. “Goodnight, my darling.”  
“Don’t you want to come in?”  
“Hadley, I would love to, but I feel this isn’t the right time yet.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Darling,” He turned back up to me. I had the door hanging half open, he placed a hand along my jawline. “I am going to make my intentions with you clear. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I am fighting myself to not push you up against a wall and kiss you tenderly. I want you more than I can ever express at this moment, but I cannot do that to you. I have this dreaded feeling if I did that and we made love tonight I would lose you. I have realized, though we haven’t known each other long, how distant you can be at the best of times.   
“Please, understand. I want our first time to mean as much to you as it will for me. I want a relationship with you not a dalliance, Hadley, and I am going to do it correctly.”  
I didn’t know what to do with him. Why would anyone want somebody as damaged as me if they weren’t just as destroyed or too weird to function? I wasn’t good for him. He had to know that. I was someone you had fun with then threw away. One day you would hear that I had hung myself or maybe you wouldn’t. By that time I would have pushed too many of my friends away. I’d disappear.   
Tom did not see me that way and he should have. I was going to hurt him, which was the last thing I wanted to do. However, I cannot help who I am.   
“Okay. But, Tom, please stay. I won’t ask you to do something you don’t want, and I won’t encourage it. Just stay next to me.” He had beautiful hazel blue eyes that I couldn’t look away from. What was this? Why did I want him this way? “Please.” I gently tugged at his arm.  
I could see him folding before he even moved to go inside. He tried to look away from me but it was difficult. I bit my lower lip, pleading with him to just walk in the door.   
It wasn’t like this was his first time in the house. He had been over before; we had watched movies together and we had been around as friends. My house was no different now.  
We went inside. I didn’t ask for anything. I didn’t need to have sex with him. From the beginning I never really felt that burning desire with Tom. Maybe it was because what we were wasn’t built on sex like my “relationships” with all the people I’ve slept with since coming to England. The only true relationship I ever had that worked was with Benjamin, who was my best friend in the entire world. So, if what Tom wanted was a real form of love he was going in the right direction.   
I didn’t realize that until now, honestly. Laying here. Not sleeping and thinking about our first night together. He laid beside me that night and all I did was look at him, study his breathing, read the way his muscles connected. I never expected to fall asleep beside him, but for some reason I found myself waking up the next morning to the smell of food wafting up from the kitchen.   
He was in boxers and nothing else as if to tease me. It was working too. The aura he was putting out intoxicated me. “I made eggs,” he said grinning at me as I came to stand beside him. “It’s been a long time since someone has cooked for me. Thank you for staying over,” I replied.  
“I enjoy taking care of people, darling, so it’s nothing.”  
A half-smile played on my lips.   
“You look so peaceful when you’re asleep.”  
“It’s not always like that,” I admitted offhandedly.  
He pushed the finished eggs out onto plates and sat them on the island among the rest of the table setting. He must have worked really hard on it. There was even a small vase of flowers for us to view. They weren’t there yesterday, so I was sure that he arranged it.  
“You shouldn’t have to be scared to sleep alone.”  
He knew I had problems sleeping, but scared? I was very scared and I tried not to show it. He looked through me as if all my emotions and walls were simply a window that he could open. That frightened me too.  
“I’m not—”  
He cupped my face in his large tender hands, I put my own hand on top of his, silently examining his fingers. They were long. Perfect piano playing fingers. My father used to play the piano sometimes.   
“Hadley, even a blind man could see how you are suffering and I am anything but blind. You may not need me to care for you, but know that I am here if you need me. For whatever. I want to be there for you.”  
Looking in his deep green eyes, I croaked. He was so stunning I hardly knew the words to say. This man wanted to take care of me, but soon he’d learn that I wasn’t worth it. I knew that. Why then did I believe him?   
“Be there for me like this then,” I breathed. I pushed my face within millimeters of his and he responded. We kissed slowly. In time with a piano that wasn’t yet playing. We took a breath. “And this,” I encouraged. Kissing along his jawline and up to his ear. I took his hands and helped them to search my body, showing him where to go, what to touch. “Be there.” I whispered into his ear.   
His head hesitated but he was already starting to show. It doesn’t take much. I knew that and maybe I took advantage of it in the circumstances. I pressed my hips against his. “Stop teasing me,” he begged while I kissed down his neck and sucked on his clavicle.   
I replied by taking off my shirt, and was left with nothing but panties. “Then you should have put more clothes on.”   
He gawked at my sheer nakedness, rubbing a hand along his lips. “Hadley, darling.”  
“Tom, I want you and not because I am trying to forget something, but because I truly want you. Let me be there for you like I know you will be for me.”  
I’m not sure what broke first: his resolve or his desperate need to hold me. Maybe those are the same thing. Who cares.  
I couldn’t see his eyes as he kissed me, but I knew they were hungry and everything inside him just poured out.  
“I’ve wanted you so badly, ever since I saw you," he moaned.  
His tongue dug down into my throat as I opened my mouth wider for him.   
“This is something you want?” He questioned me.  
I responded with a hand down his underwear, moving up and down his penis. There was no mistaking it now.  
He took me in his arms and hoisted me up onto the free part of the counter. He pulled down my underwear and tossed them away. I spread open my legs around him. The coolness of the tile on my bare skin set me on fire.  
“Do you have a condom?”  
“I have the implant. There’s no need to worry.”  
His boxers showed the signs of precum. I motioned for him to remove them. They were only in the way.   
My hands raced down his back. I tried to remember the songs my father taught me to play on his piano. Something by Beethoven. Something by Janacek. I tapped the rhythm out on Tom’s spine. He licked my nipple, mimicking the action with his fingers as to not leave the other out. My heart is beating faster in my chest and I feel his too. I feel his smile as he realizes this. The bristles on his morning scruff tickled me. I moan in pleasure. The grip of his fingers around my breast is so arousing. He looks up at me. I nod.  
“Do you like this?” He asks as his fingers trickle down to my thighs; his mouth moving up to meet mine. The touch persuades me to open my legs more for him. I can feel my wetness staining the countertop.   
I gasp in his mouth as he put his cock into place and pushed into my cunt. “Fuck,” I moan. The feeling of him courses through my body. I adjust a bit so he can go further. He is all over me thrusting inside me, holding me close to him, one hand on my breast, the other fooling my clit, and his mouth on mine. His lips no longer pretend to be thin. They are full of moisture and want.  
“Thomas,” I breathe. I like the sound of his name on my lips.  
He goes slowly at first, but I encourage him to move faster. We moan together, filling the empty house with our fullness.   
“Hadley, cum for me,” he says, speeding up. My legs are shaking. Tom’s finger moves in circles on my clit, it doesn’t take long for me to collapse around him. Squeezing his cock inside of me, we both encounter climax. I lie back on the countertop as he pulls out, leaning his head onto my stomach as we both catch our breaths.  
“Should we eat then?” I ask.  
“Certainly. I’m still starving.”

 

 

January 24. Present.

I woke up the next morning feeling like shit as usual. The last time I remember looking at the clock was at four am. Now it was eight and blurry. I put on my glasses. It was a Saturday, wasn’t it? I rolled over, hugging my pillows and sighed. I didn’t want to get out of bed, but my body said otherwise. The numb feeling you get when you’ve spent too much time in bed creeped up my calves and thighs.

Why?

Why?

Why?

I grabbed at the bottle of water on the nightstand and my depression medicine. I might as well take it while I’m thinking about it. My phone lit up. A text from Adam:

_Your Aunt wants to talk to you. We are meeting her for lunch. 12:00_

I sighed deeply, then went downstairs.

My morning was slow, as it always was when Tom wasn’t there. I turned on the TV to watch reruns of Doctor Who and sat amid a pile of blankets and pillows. I didn’t eat. Wasn’t feeling it.

Around 10:30 I decided to take a shower and get ready. Then I got caught up on deciding what to wear. Was it summer, spring, or fall? How was I to know? Luckily, Adam showed up and agreed it was spring. He pulled out a dress my Aunt would approve of and moccasin boots.

“Can’t have you looking too posh,” he said, “I think this is just hipster enough.”

I faked a laugh.

“Car’s here,” Adam called from the bottom of the stairs.

I walked down the steps. “We’re taking a car? Can’t we just take the tube?”

“It isn’t only your Aunt.”

“So?”

“Just come on,” he waved me over.

The sleek black car took us deep into Central London’s garnished wasteland. Where restaurants and cheap tourist traps lined the streets behind hundred year old facades. The sun was high in the sky, but somehow car rides always made me tired. Adam sighed in my general direction, which I took to mean that I shouldn’t dare yawn during lunch. He was very fidgety during the ride. Tapping his fingers and glancing at me to make sure I hadn’t decided to jump out whenever we stopped at a light. He was normally pretty jumpy around my Aunt, but this was getting to an entirely new level.

We stopped in front of an old white building in Covent Gardens labeled as The Ivy, at exactly 12:00. My Aunt was already inside laughing with some guy next to her.

Adam came around and opened the door for me. He straightened his suit jacket and huffed nervously. “Ready?”

“Are you?”

“Of course. I’m not the one to be worrying about.”

“Whatever,” I sighed, stepping out from the cab.

Adam led me in and I got a better look at the man my Aunt sat with. The Ivy was completely empty except for the two of them. Fresh Tables laid out waiting for people that weren’t going to come until my Aunt and her friend were finished owning the restaurant. These poor people were losing money to some stuck up fashionista and her depressed niece who couldn’t give two shits about the man that it was obvious she had brought to meet me. The stocky, balding man turned to greet Adam and me as we walked up to the table. He was wearing a black suit with a red bow tie and loafers coated in alligator skin. His face was rat-ish, almost pinched. He definitely had some work done recently. My Aunt was wearing a peplum floral dress that hugged her small frame along with Jackie-o sunglasses, which she took off once she saw me to reveal make up that was as natural as plaster. She always reminded me of Jackie Kennedy the way she wore her hair and makeup. Very 80s, yet somehow still in style.

“Roger,” my Aunt said in her learned accent. She’d lived in London for almost forty years. “Please meet my niece, Hadley, and Adam Leheigh my assistant.”

“Very nice to meet you, dear.” He took my outstretched hand and kissed it sloppily. Just shake it like a normal person, seriously. Roger ignored Adam. I wiped my hand off on Adam's jacket as indiscreetly as possible.  Roger didn’t notice. He was too busy looking me up and down. “She’s gorgeous, Amelia. She must get that from your side of the family.” Roger winked at my Aunt.

“You are too kind, Roger. Her father was very handsome. He was from Spain. I’d say she got it more from him.”

I scowled in my mind, but put on a fake smile as prompted by Adam, who nearly glared at me once my father was mentioned. I didn’t have enough effort to put into making a scene. He didn’t really have to worry.

“Please, sit, my dears,” Roger motioned.

We did.

The restaurant staff brought out meals for us almost immediately. My Aunt must have already ordered for us. A fancy version of chicken parmesan was sat in front of me. Even though it was something I liked I wasn’t really that hungry. I only picked at it.

Red wine was poured in all of the glasses except mine. I got water. She seemed fit on treating me like a child, unless it was Adam’s doing. Either and both were high possibilities.

Roger and my Aunt talked on about me, but ignored my existence. They laughed gaudily. It was probably a good thing no one else was in the restaurant. I sat there reading Buzzfeed articles, until Adam glared at me with a could-you-be-more-obvious stare. I replied with a could-they.

They were noticeable in their intentions. Chatting about my body as though it was the piece of steak sat out in front of them. My Aunt had clearly brought me here to meet Roger for some form of interview. One that only the fashion industry could cook up.

My Aunt dabbed at her lips with a napkin. It was the most useless motion I had ever seen anyone do. There was nothing but lipstick on her mouth before or after she did it.

“So, my dear,” Roger said, finally addressing me. “What has gotten you interested in being a model?”

_Whoop. There it is._

Honest answer. Nothing.

The answer everyone wanted to hear, “Oh, you know. I just like being pretty.”

Adam slammed his foot down on mine notifying me that I needed to reign in the sarcasm. I grimaced.

Adam expertly and subtly texted me a rant about how famous this Roger was and how great of an opportunity this was for me.

_This Man is Roger Penndergast. He runs the best modeling agency in Europe. If Amelia brought him here to look you over you had better be nice. Nobody gets this chance and you have no idea how lucky you are to have an Aunt like Amelia. I know the two of you have your differences but modeling is the easiest job you could ever get in your entire life much easier than trying to care about waiting tables. All you’ve got to do is stand there. And considering your affinity for laziness I would take this offer._

“Tell me, dear. Is that your natural hair?”

“Hair? Uh yeah. It’s been blonde all my life.”

“Curly as well?”

“I literally do nothing to my hair other than to braid it.”

“Well, you may have to grow it out as short as it is. Long hair is in these days, especially with your style. I think you would work best in bohemian circles. High Fashion is a bit of a stretch, but with Amelia’s help it wouldn’t take long to get you there if you are good and also if…” he paused and stared at my stomach with a pursed look, “you lose a tad bit of weight. Your thighs need work and have you ever heard of plucking your eyebrows. A little work on them and you’d be perfect. Also, we are going to have to get you contacts.

“Honestly, Amelia, she did not get your affinity for style. That has to change. But,” Roger exclaimed pointedly, “I am willing to work with you as a favor to Amelia. At least you aren’t as scruffy as half the ones trying to pass for women these days.”

Amelia glanced at me expectantly. I felt Adam glaring through the smile plastered to his face.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sounds great.”

After that confirmation. They went back to talking, although Adam joined in this time. Amelia immediately designated him as my assistant and that everything to do with me should go through him. I think Adam took that as a down grade. He knew that she was just using him as my babysitter, but up until now she hadn’t said it. They figured out times to set everything up and when I would come down to the studio for headshots and sign papers. Absolutely boring, if you ask me.

I went back to scrolling through Buzzfeed.

 

 

January 30. Present.

Question: Do casual relationships always turn serious as the soonest possible moment?

Was I mentally prepared to be in a serious relationship—to say I love you? No. Not nearly. Was that what Tom was going for? Yes.

It had been a week since Tom said he loved me and six days since Roger offered a modeling contract to me. Tom and I had texted minimally. He tried, but I always said I was too tired or busy. Most of the time that was a lie, but not today. It was Saturday and I was standing at the base of brick constitution of a building, shaking hands with a tour guide about to show Adam and me the Engineering department of Imperial University in London. I wish I could say I had never seen a more stuck-up looking building in my entire life, however, I was in London where they all look that way: tall, white, marbled, and statues of old dudes. South Kensington was especially prone.

“We have a great program here,” the tour guide said. Brian, maybe? I couldn’t see his badge. It was buried in the folds of his Northface jacket. “We are second in the world for universities. Whether you want Engineering, Pre-med, Computing, or Business.

“We also have students coming here from over 125 countries. Our reputation for excellence in teaching and research attracts students and staff of the highest international calibre. I, myself, came here from India to study.”

Ryan walked backwards expertly as we traversed under large marble ceilings and past more old white men in paintings. Babbling on about how great the university was, he talked about their research partnerships with big paying companies.

Adam nodded at every juncture and asked questions I should have been asking.

“So what are you interested in doing?” Rinaldo asked, an eyebrow raised in my direction.

“Huh,” I was too interested in mentally making fun of the men in the paintings. “Oh, um I just want to do stuff with computers.”

“Like programming.”

“Yeah.”

Armado flipped through the file he had on me tucked under his arm, “I thought you were interested in our physics and engineering programs.”  His cheeks flushed.

“Oh yeah, that too.”

Adam butted in, “We’re looking at both.”

“Oh okay,” Alphonse’s temperature seemed to go down. “I can tell you a lot about our physics program. That’s what I’m in.” He proceeded to tell me all about it. For Adam’s sake I attempted to at least look interested.

I don’t even know how many doors we went through, how many labs we looked at, how many random people I shook hands with.

“Now, for the best part of the tour,” Peter beamed, “It’s actually one of my favorite places on the entire campus. The library.”

Behind magnificent oak doors carved with the Imperial University Crest, were towers of books upon books and books.

Finally, something interesting.

Extremely exhausted students lumbered around dark mahogany desks with green table lamps and their Mac computers on high brightness. Some printed things on a row of copy machines or read in nooks under windows taller than elephants.

“Amazing, right?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. It was all so mesmerizing. I remembered playing in the Stanford library as a child while my father read through books and research papers. I would play under desks like these pretending to be the son of FDR under the president's desk like in the picture my father showed me. He would let me sit in his lap and read with him, explaining all the words I didn't know yet. There were so many back then, but now I know almost all of them.

“I’ve been told they are offering you a full scholarship and sophomore status,” Patrick asked.

I was too busy admiring the books nearest to me. “Cambridge is offering me more.”

He faltered and his face became red once again, “More. Like what?”

“More than a full ride. They said they would give me a research grant for whatever I wanted and sophomore status too. So by that logic I should go there.”

“I—I,” he stuttered. “I’m sure you can talk to the Dean about—getting a better scholarship.”

“Maybe.”

A text from Tom came through:  _Can I see you? I feel like you’ve been ignoring me since…_

_I want to clear things up. I want to talk to you in person._

I sighed. “Adam, I’m done here. Can we go get coffee or something?”

“Yes, of course. Anything wrong?”

“No.”

Roberto or whatever his name was opened his lips in surprise, “You’re leaving? The tour’s not done yet. I’ve still to show you the Café. You can get coffee there!”

I looked directly in his eyes and sighed. “Thanks for the tour, Tony.”

“My name isn’t—”

“I don’t need to see the Café. I’m sure it’s great. You did a great job and can tell your leader or whatever, that this school is at the top of my list. Mainly, because it’s the only one located in central London.” I patted him on the shoulder, “Thanks, Randy.”

“It’s not—”

“Sorry, mate,” Adam said. “She gets like this. We really like this place though. I think the library did it for her. Thank you, Brady.”

As we walked away I heard him mumbling under his breath, “Yeah. That’s it.”

Adam took me to the nearest Starbucks for emergency coffee and began chewing me out as soon as we sat down.

"You could have been nicer. You might become friends if you go there."

I calmly took a bite of a chocolate chip blondie, "friends. No matter where i go I will not be making any friends"

"You don't know that."

"I do. I'm not likable."

Adam huffed, "you are very likeable. For some reason you've convinced yourself that you don't deserve anyone."

"It's true."

"It is not."

"Thomas is a great man and if he wasn't so good for you I'd...he's good for you, Hadley. Stop leading him on. Both of you deserve so much better."

I finished my blondie and stood up. Wiped the crumbs from my shirt and pants and sighed tiredly at Adam. His dark brown eyes looked at me with pity and hope. He was probably my only friend anymore. Back in the states, in San Fransico, when I got too bad the friends I did have stopped talking to me. I basically told them too. I knew I was too much to handle and I didn't want my problems affecting their lives. Margo held out for the longest. Then I disappeared to Seattle and she finally stopped. Only because she couldn't find me.

"I'm going home. I'm tired."

"Okay." He took a sip of his cappuccino and I walked out the door. I glanced back as I passed the window and watched his dark head move side to side. He was disappointed. He should stop expecting things.

 ****  
  
Tom was waiting for me at the door.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Tom was waiting for me at the door. Bundled up in a Burberry overcoat and green checkered scarf, his presence drew a lot of attention on the streets. Most of my neighbors didn’t care by this point. They had seen him around enough, besides most of them were famous or rich themselves and understood. In fact, Benedict Cumberbatch lived just down the road, which was great for Tom since they were like best friends or something.

But the problem was the people who were just passing through. They saw Tom Hiddleston sitting on the steps of some random girl’s house and immediately tweeted about it. Pretty sure one twelve year old instagramed us. I’m not sure how long he sat there but certainly long enough to gain attention from more than just people who lived in the area.

He saw me and stood up expectantly. He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at me from two steps up with seal-pup eyes. “Hadley…I”

I sighed, “Can we please go inside first? I’d rather not do this here.” I didn’t want to deal with any of this let alone today. And right now I could barely handle the way he was looking at me.

“Of course.”

He moved aside and let me unlock the door. I walked inside and let him in, closing the door behind us and throwing my keys on to the stand. Before they even hit the table, Tom was on me. He pushed me up against the front door, molding his lips into mine with an urgency. His hands fled down my sides and back, holding me in an embrace. He stopped for a moment. Held himself back. I could feel his hips keeping me against the door. So used to pushing harder, they moved back and forth uneasily. He lusted after my lips. His breath hot on my face.

“Hadley, I love you and I know you aren’t ready to tell me if you love me and that’s okay. I will wait, but I need you to know how I feel. I can’t keep it in any longer.”

“Tom…” I whispered, “Please, don’t say it.”

“I need you to know that I love you with everything I am capable of. Entirely and unrequited. I have never met anyone that has made me feel so alive, so completely encapsulated by your presence. I love you so much and I want us to have a future together. That is why I want you to know something—I understand that you cannot tell me everything and that you think you are protecting me from something. Whatever it is, I believe you. Even if you never tell me, I believe you and I will be here for you as long as you want me too. Because I love you and I will wait until you are ready to tell me you love me too.” He smiled so lovingly; with such empathy in his eyes.

I put my hand against his chest, feeling the way he breathed. I couldn’t do this right now. I thought of Benjamin for the first time in almost a week. Whenever Tom was around my mind wandered to him, maybe it was because they were so much alike. I was so torn I couldn’t even look at him.

“Tom, I feel like I love you, but I can’t ask that to be enough. It might be all I can ever give. I’ve had trouble in the past with people I care about getting hurt.” With my other hand I touched the scars on my face. The plastic that were my freckles. “It’s my fault. Still, I can’t stop myself. I can’t keep myself away from you. One day I may be able to freely say that…it, but right now, I feel like I do, but I don’t know. I can never promise you anything and you deserve so much more than that.”

The laughter lines around his eyes crinkled as he put a hand on my cheek. “I am okay with that. I want you. I expect nothing less than what you’ve given me and I want nothing more. I don’t expect anything more from you, because you’ve already given me everything I could possibly want. Okay?”

“I can’t promise anything. I can’t always show up here whenever you come looking for me. I can’t always promise I’ll be in the present with you. I’m sick. We can’t ever have a normal relationship.”

He wiped at the tears forming around my eyes, his limber fingers bumping at my glasses frames. “You aren’t sick, Hads. I don’t about being normal, that’s boring. As long as I have you.”

“Okay,” I said. Tom met my lips again with his. We kissed sloppily, my tongue down his throat. His whole body held me flat to the door. I had my hand against his chest, at first to push him away, but as our kisses became hungrier I pulled him closer. He rested one hand against the door the other was wrist deep in my pants.

“How long do you have,” I asked.

“As long as you’ll have me,” He replied between kisses. “And you?”

“My schedule has suddenly opened up.” He smothered my grin with a wet kiss.

“I was hoping for that.”

“Obviously,” as if his thirsty mouth wasn’t enough.

We tore each other apart. He kept kissing me as we both tried to take off his coat. I think he attempted to hang it up, but I swatted it down to the floor. “No time,” I breathed. I didn’t want to wait for anything. It had been so long since we’d had long uninterrupted sex, since I had been able to release all of the sexual tension building up inside of me. And not care and not be trying to forget something. Going for his button down, I took to unraveling the scarf hanging around his neck and tenderly kissed where it left exposed skin, he dropped his shirt to the ground as well. He stopped for a second, leaving me to marvel at the lithe muscular frame Marvel had ‘encouraged’ him to build up. His chest was a national treasure. I rubbed my hands up and down it in strange patterns only I would know the code too. Tom suckled on my ear and down my neck, taking off my jacket and trying to unzip my trousers with blind hands. I stared at his body as he did, distracted every once in a while by the facial hair scratching at my neck.

He undressed me in the hallway and I let him. My bra and panties stayed on for the moment. He ran his loving eyes up my body taking in every feature, then grinned as if he was a little boy who could be no happier than on Christmas day. He pulled my face to his again, our hands tangled in each other’s, my glasses bumping on his nose. We switched places so that he was against the door and I jumped up, wrapping my legs around his hips. He carried e up the stairs like this.

 

We fell onto the bed in a heap, him on top of me, his boxers finally down. It didn’t take much for him to get an erection, by this time it was at half height. Among everyone I had ever slept with he certainly had one of the largest penis’ I had ever encountered. It was nearly eight inches without any form of arousal.

He pinned me to the bed a hand on either side of me, kissing me with a vengeance everywhere he could possibly manage. My tits hardened as he licked around them and groped my breasts into submission. I moaned louder with each new movement.

 

I went back under him and spread my legs as wide as I could. I pleaded for him to enter me. His erection, now at full height, throbbed. Together we held his penis and gently guided it into my vagina. Immediately I began rolling my hips, earning a moan of pleasure. We began to move together a flurry of moaning and ‘oh gods’ escaped us for we had no other words to describe it. He nibbled at my neck and ears as I raced my fingers down his back. He kept one hand near my clit at all times, making sure I got as much out of it as he did.

“Harder, Tom, please. And faster.” I moaned.

His rocking increased. “Is that better?”

“Deeper.”

More of his shaft went in and I felt his hips hard against me. That was all of it. I felt my orgasm coming on.

“If I should think of love,” he recited softly.

“I'd think of you, your arms uplifted,

Tying your hair in plaits above,

The lyre shape of your arms and shoulders,

The soft curve of your winding head.

No melody is sweeter, nor could Orpheus

So have bewitched. I think of this,

And all my universe becomes perfection.

But were you in my arms, dear love,

The happiness would take my breath away,

No thought could match that ecstasy,

No song encompass it, no other worlds.

If I should think of love,

I'd think of you.”

 _Shakespeare. Thomas_. I laughed. I laughed so hard my whole body moved and Tom’s with it. He chuckled. I hadn’t laughed this hard in such a long time. Suddenly we both just started laughing in the middle of it all. Still rolling rhythmically.

Suddenly, I felt him come, like a pressure releasing within me.

 

 

August 31. Four years before.

“Benjamin?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are we here?”

“There could be a lot of answers to that question, Hads, which one do you want,” He chuckled. I lifted my head from his shoulder. We leaned against my car, my mom’s old pick-up truck. She used to use it for gardening. There was still dirt from the bags of soil it used to carry on the back bumper. It was summer now. Two years since they had died. And college had started. Benjamin and I both got into Stanford, but he decided not to go yet. His parents needed him to help back home. Things were rough for them.

It was Thursday and he called, asking if we could hang out. I responded with:  _You have my truck so that’s up to you, Really._

We couldn’t have cars our first year on campus.

I skipped class. The two of us went out for ice cream. That was where we were now, leaning against my truck, getting dirt on my jean shorts.

I looked at him, questioningly. “Guess,” I said.

He shoved a spoonful of chocolate brownie ice cream into his mouth. Squinting up at the sun with his Caribbean green eyes, he seemed apprehensive. He and his mom were fighting again. That’s probably why he called me, he never liked me skipping classes. He had a hard enough time in high school getting me to go. But sometimes even he needed someone to comfort him. After all the times he was there for me it was least I could do for him.

“Um…Because I called you? And I drove here?”

His parents took in a lot of kids from foster care. Benjamin was the oldest and the only one that was actually theirs. He liked kids and he loved his little siblings, but things were getting harder for them. Benjamin’s dad had cancer. The treatments were costing them nearly everything. His mom wasn’t able to take care of all the children on her own. Benjamin stepped in.

I wiped a bit of melted ice cream from my t-shirt.

“Bigger picture.”

“The Big Bang.”

His dark hair ruffled in a sudden breeze. “Why not God?” I wondered.

“You don’t believe in God.”

“You do.”

“I believe in possibility.”

I sighed happily and leaned more on the truck. “That is why you are the optimist of our relationship.”

He smiled down at me. “Bigger picture,” he said.

“What?”

“Answer your own question,” his dimples grew wider, “Bigger picture.”

 

 

February 15. Present.

“Why are we here?”

“Does it matter.”

“Hadley, I am trying to help you. Why are we here?” Dr. Genevieve beseeched me. She leaned back on her cushy red lounge chair. I hugged the pillow on mine absentmindedly. Adam made me go this week. Therapy. Fuck that.

“Because I was forced awake this morning by a rather feeble Caliban.”

“I always like your references to Shakespeare, but I doubt Adam would like being compared to Caliban. Also, we are talking about you.” She did that little sideways grin doctors did when they were irritated. Her accent thickened, “Why are we here, Hadley? Start from the beginning.”

Genevieve liked doing this little exercise. Where I made a timeline of my problems and what caused everything. It was her patented method. Actually, patented. She wrote a journal article about it and everything. I had read it and it was shit.

“First, there was the Big Bang.”

“Hadley.”

Well, it was only half shit.

I sighed, “Then my parents died.”

“Good, go on.”

“In a fire, which almost killed me too.”

“But…” she pressed.

“The firefighters got me out.”

Genevieve wrote notes down as I spoke. I wondered if one of them said something about me being ‘a difficult case.’

“Was Ben there?”

“Benjamin,” I glared, but she wasn’t paying attention, “Was there. He rode with me to the hospital. He was with me the whole time.”

“What is next?”

More like  _let us recall the next bad thing that happened in your life._  I tried not to think about that.

“I tried to kill myself, because the dinosaurs had the right idea when they went extinct.”

Then I got the eye twitch. The front bit of her hair wobbled when she did that. Inwardly, I made fun of her.

“Next, Benjamin saved me from that too.”

“How did you try to kill yourself that time?”

“Meteor.”

She sighed.

“Fire,” I admitted. I had already told her all of this a hundred times.

“Why choose fire?”

 _Because that’s how my parents died._ “Dunno? It was available.”

“I think it’s because that is how your parents died.”

Uh huh? “Very astute Dr.”

“Moving on,” Genevieve sat up straighter, laid her pen down, and wiped the wobbling bit of brown hair from her forehead.

“Four years later, Benjamin’s father recovered from cancer and he came to college. Then he was in the accident.”

“What accident?”

“A tractor trailer hit him, when it should have hit me.”

“Why didn’t it hit you?”

“Benjamin pushed me out of the way.”

“Were you hurt?”

“Not enough.”

She made another note, “And how were Ben’s injuries?”

“Bad,” I rolled my eyes.

“The last time we did this you said that the Doctors put him in a medically induced coma, but did not expect him to ever wake up from it.”

“Yeah.”

“You said, his brain underwent a lot of swelling and it showed no signs of going down. Also, he had multiple broken bones as well as liver failure and lung puncture.”

I leaned on the armrest and stared at her bored to death, or wishing I was. “Yeah.”

“He got a new liver?’

“He got a piece of mine. We matched apparently.”

“Why would you do that?”

“He was my best friend, my boyfriend, and, other than the half-brother I didn't know about until my parents were gone, he was the only family I had,” I burst out yelling.

“I see.”

_Stop being calm if you're going to make me angry._

“How about we talk about your half-brother for a bit.”

“How about not.”

“Do you have something against him?”

“No, I just don’t care for you to know about him. He has nothing to do with anything.”

“Doesn’t he?”

“No,” I cautioned.

“Zander, correct?”

“I never told you that.”

“Adam, did.”

“What happened to doctor patient confidentiality?”

“I don’t talk about you, only he does. I only ever ask how you seem to be doing.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s still crossing a line.”

Ignoring me, she looked down at her notes again. Scanning them then, “Let’s move to the next time you were in the hospital. That was the second time you tried to kill yourself, correct?”

“I didn't try that time. It just happened.”

“You ran into a telephone pole.”

“It was raining.”

“You were high.”

“And?”

“On what?”

“You seem to be the one telling the story now.”

She took off her glasses, tenderly, holding them on the armrest of her chair. She breathed in, “What you told me last time was that you had taken all of your depression medication at once. Then you got in the car, but you don’t remember where you mean to go. Correct?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

 _Don’t turn it around on me like you invented that trick._ “I was taken to the hospital. They pumped my stomach, or so I was told. I passed out. The police came while I was sleeping. The Doctor told me that he had told them that I had been in here before, that I had a history of depression and suicidal tendencies. That there were fresh scars on my arms and legs, not from the accident and that he recommended I be put in the psych ward.”

“Were you?”

“Yes,” I rubbed my eyes and yawned, “For a month.”

“What did you do when you got out?”

“San Francisco reminded me of death, so I left college, didn't tell anybody were I was going and went to Seattle.”

“Why Seattle?”

She always seemed genuinely interested in why I had picked Seattle as my final destination. I always told her the same thing. “I liked the rain.” Genevieve was never happy with that answer, but it was the one thing she didn't pressure me about.

“In Seattle you tried to kill yourself again.”

“More like, I never slept so when I exhausted myself by falling into the harbor, they thought I had tried to kill myself, due to past incidences.”

“You never slept, why?”

“I couldn't stop thinking about Benjamin.”

“Have you been sleeping better recently?”

“Yeah.”

“Is the medicine helping?”

“I don’t take it. They gave it to me in Seattle and it didn’t work.”

“Okay,” she noted that down. “They put you in another psych ward in Seattle, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Then your Aunt came to get you.”

“Three months later. After the fall of Babylon.”

“Hadley,” she criticized. “After you refused medical attention and locked them out of your room.”

“I don’t remember putting that much effort into it.” I yawned again. My phone buzzed. My time with Genevieve was almost up. Then it buzzed in a different way; a text.

“Will you put so much effort into going to see Ben?”

“Adam…”

“Yes. He has informed me that Ben has woken up and you refuse to see him. He figured you wouldn’t tell me that.”

I would kill Adam.

“He was right.”

“Will you? I think it will be good for you.”

“Maybe. But it could also be good for me to not.”

Dr. Genevieve sighed, put her glasses back on and looked at her watch, holding it with two fingers. The band twisted in her fingers. The dark leather matching her skin. It was hard to know it was even there if not for the white of the watch face.

“We are nearly out of time.”

“Are we?”

“This exercise usually does take the whole hour with you,” she paused. “So, Hadley. Now that we’ve done this can you see why we are here?”

Around the room she had towers of bookshelves, a desk, and one wastebasket. Some of the books with titles on their spines like: How to Overcome Depression, Living with Your Loneliness, Finding Faith, Strength, and Answers, and Silence. None of those books knew any more than she did. Altogether, maybe. The problem is that she wasn’t asking the right question. Nor was she the right person to ask.

_No, you are asking the wrong answer. You aren’t looking at the bigger picture, Doctor. This is so much bigger than me._

“Yes,” I said.

 

 

Tom was outside the building waiting for me. It had been him that texted me to say he was here to get me. Not that I needed anyone too. It was just in Oxford Circus. Strange place for Psychiatrists offices, if you ask me, but whatever.

It was a good thing that Adam hadn’t been the one to text me. I would have chewed him out.

“Hey.”

“Hullo, Love,” Tom pulled me in and kissed me on the forehead. He was wearing a dark beanie and a hoodie. He’d taken off his sunglasses when he saw me. I guess it was what passed for a disguise with him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just thought you might be a bit exhausted after your appointment so I came to cheer you up. Perhaps lunch, as well,” he raised an eyebrow. Gosh, those eyebrows.

“Yeah, sure.”

He put his sunglasses back on and wrapped an arm around me. We walked down Prince Street and turned left. There was a Starbucks I frequented around the corner. “How was it, then?”

“Shit, as always.”

“Isn’t it supposed to make you feel better?”

“It used to, but now not so much. Therapy has run out its usefulness.”

“I’m sorry.”

He opened the door to Starbucks for me. He ordered my usual and I found a seat in the corner, next to the window. Not that there were many spots not near the window, this was most likely the smallest Starbucks in the history of existence.

Tom sat down and handed me my ham and cheese croissant and hot chocolate. He had tea and a scone. “You aren’t wearing your glasses today?”

“I never took out my contacts from the day before. Roger le-whatever booked me on a shoot yesterday.”

“Penndergast. You shouldn’t sleep with them in,” he touched my chin, lifting it up so he could examine my eyes. “You have such pretty eyes. You should be more careful.”

“Adam got me the ones that I can leave in for a month if need be.”

Tom grinned, letting go of my chin, “He knows you too well.”

“Yep.” My croissant was so good. The buttery flakes of it melted in my mouth.

He watched me as I ate. “So, how was it yesterday?”

“The shoot?”

“Yes. What was it for?”

“My Aunt actually.”

“Really? It seems like she has been trying to help you out more recently.”

“Maybe.”

“She cares about you.”

“Tom.”

“Sorry, I know you’d rather not talk about it. Especially, after you just talked about it with Genevieve.”

“Yeah.”

“So, I was thinking about taking you out today. For an adventure.”

I squinted at him, halfway into biting the croissant. “Why?”

“Why not?”

“As much as I’d like to believe you do nice things for me just because, I don’t always.”

“You’re my, girlfriend. Do I need a reason?” His blue-green eye sparkled, like he was up to something.

“You’re giving me that look like that one time you suggested we role-play Loki in bed.”

“I am not,” he grinned. Dimples up to his cheek lines.

“Yes, you are. Now why?”

“Honestly, darling. It’s just because I want to be with you today.”

 “Uh huh.”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

“Now?” I held up what was left of the croissant, I’m not done eating?”

“Yes, come on.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes Tom gets really insistent on going on adventures. I was still chugging down the rest of my hot chocolate as he pulled me out of the Starbucks grinning. “You are literally crazy,” I said.  
“I am Loki.” He giggled, “Ehehehe,” in the strange way that he does. Twisting beard hairs as if he were a 1920s Strong Man, I have no idea why he started doing that or where it came from.  
“Stop that. It’s weird. Someone will notice.”  
“So, perhaps I’d like the whole world to know about you, Love.” He whipped me around like a masterful dancer and I ended up in his arms, he kissed me tenderly. Then as soon as it started it was over and we were off down the sidewalk once again.  
“Where the fuck are you taking me?”  
“You’ll see.”  
We ran around a few corners, passing the high class shops of Oxford Circus: H&M, Topshop, Next, and through early afternoon shoppers, bundled up against the cold, just as we were. The lights from Christmas were still up. I remembered Tom saying these would be there until the end of January if the mood was right.  
“Here we are, Darling.”  
A rack of Barclay’s bicycles were proudly displayed in front of me by a whooshing of Tom’s arms.  
“No,”  
“I’ve not even asked yet?”  
“Adam told me to never ride a bike here, unless I was willing to take a safety course. And I was not,” I said, “willing, that is.”  
“Don’t worry, Love. You won’t be the one doing the driving.”  
“Huh?”  
He grinned, devilishly. He went over to a bike and unlocked it, putting in some coins to the meter then rolled it up to me. One long leg swung over. “Just like a horse,” he smiled at me. His long fingers gripping the handles and his arm muscles tensing under his sweater. “Hop on,” he cajoled, patting behind him.  
Did he want me to get on with him?  
“That’s dangerous, Tom. Especially in London.”  
“I would never put you in any danger. I promise I won’t go fast or on any main roads. We’ll stay to the sidewalks.”  
I thought for a minute. It was rare to see this side of him around me. I was always do down and brought everyone around me to my level. Whenever he got like this I suddenly realized that he deserved more and that I was the one that had to give it to him. This Tom was so unfamiliar to me, rare, strange even, and yet marvelous. There’s a word for that. I forget.  
“Okay.”  
The smile he gave me was so grand and wholesome, I found myself grinning a bit also.

I situated myself on the back spokes and held onto to him tightly. Underneath the wool of the sweater his body was hard and comforting. “I’m ready,” I breathed. Already my heart raced.  
“Don’t worry, Hadley.”  
“Okay.”

He started off slowly, to find balance with two people on the bike, and then got up to a normal speed. We went down Oxford Street then High Holborn, then down toward the bank of the Thames to ride along the water. In all the months of living here he was the only one I would ever explore with. Adam would ask if I wanted to tour the city, see the sights and all, but I always said no. Tom was different. With him it wasn’t like he was asking. There was no tension in waiting for something or anxiety in planning to go somewhere. With him it just happened. He understood my need to be spontaneous, anything else gave me anxiety. I hated knowing the future.  
The streets were filled with black cabs and people and people walking dogs and people walking babies and small cars and wild women playing guitars and friendly hoboes. This city was full of noises. The bells of Big Ben chimed on the hours and horns honked and people walked silently. London was a city that appreciated silence the way I did. People didn’t talk unless they had a reason.  
Tom was smiling the whole time, we’d stop every once in a while and he pointed out something interesting. An old building here or there, a theater he performed in, or the way the light hit the roofs in just the right way.  
We stopped in a bookshop, but didn’t buy anything. Just recited Shakespeare in the aisles.

Hamlet. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, — if the  
rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me, — with two Provincial  
roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players,  
sir?  
Horatio. Half a share.  
Hamlet. A whole one, I.  
For thou dost know, O Damon dear.  
This realm dismantled was  
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here  
A very, very — pajock.  
Horatio. You might have rhymed.

Until the clerk gave us a look that meant we were disturbing the peace.  
“Shall we return to thy steed, M’lady?” Tom bowed.  
“Yes, good Sir.”

Soon after we parked the bike at one of its stations, because both of our legs were getting tired. Especially, mine from trying to balance on the back for such a long time. With Tom’s stamina I’m sure he could probably go on for another hour or so.  
“Let’s go this way,” he said as we were about to pass London Bridge and instead went over it. Walking down south bank of the Thames to City Hall.  
“What kind of maniac built this building?”  
“That would be our lovely mayor,” Tom said. The glass building looked like someone had sliced a helmet up and set each ring off kilter. Some LARPERS were in the park next to it. Fooling around with fake swords and quoting old plays. “Here look at this.” Tom pointed out onto the river down over the barrier. I hoisted myself up and looked over.  
“Where?”  
He leaned over with me. I felt his hands go over my back and stop at my hips. “There,” he said sweetly.  
“I literally see nothing.”  
He pushed me.  
I screeched.  
I didn’t go anywhere. It felt like I could have, but he caught me before anything happened. Not that he would have let it.  
“Tom!” I yelled turning around and hitting him. “You fuck!”  
“Sorry, Love. I just couldn’t help myself.”  
“Bastard!” I wacked at his chest again.  
He laughed, “That hurts.”  
“Don’t be a dick.”

From the park next to us the LARPERs yelled, “Watch out, mate!”  
“What?” I blinked at a foam sword flying at me. It hit my face and fell to the ground. “Umm. Okay.”  
Tom immediately checked to see if I was okay. “Darling, are you injured?” He touched the part of my cheek that it hit. I swatted him away. I was still kind of pissed at the trick he just pulled.  
“Yeah, it was just foam.”  
The LARPER that threw the sword jogged over to us. He looked to be about my age or a bit younger, with blonde hair and dark eyes. British and the telltale signs of beard growth. He seemed to be trying to look like a knight character, armor and mock chainmail, but with a crown.  
He bowed to us, “I am sorry, sir. If you would please forgive me.”  
Tom smiled. “I’ll only forgive you,” he bent down and picked up the foam sword at my feet, “if I may restore my lady’s honor with a fight to the death.” Tom pointed it at the boy’s throat.  
“Really, Tom?”  
“You have been wronged, my Darling. I cannot let this man go unpunished. If he be a true knight he would understand this cause.”  
The boy smiled, “I accept.”  
“This is so stupid,” I scoffed as they positioned themselves in the grass at a standoff. Foam swords at the ready.  
“My name is Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot. May I know the name of my opponent?”  
“Sir Thomas.”  
“This is just—really,” I complained.  
“Please, Love. He has wronged you. Thrust his sword at you. I must make it right.”  
“With glorified foam fingers?”  
The boy king but in, “They won’t let us use anything else.”  
I crossed my arms, “I can imagine why.” Rolling my eyes I said, “Whatever. Defend my honor, Sir Thomas. I’ll just be sitting over there, where hopefully I’m out of firing range.”  
I sat down in the grass a good ways away and nowhere near the others in the band of LARPERs, and began pulling the grass from its roots.  
“Shall we?” Thomas beckoned.  
“We shall.”  
He was literally a child. Tom was arrogant with his thrusts, the foam sword flopping at ‘Arthur’s’. Arthur was wary with his angles, in his eyes he was calculating Tom’s next move, but quickly realized that he was up against a superior swordsman. Auburn curls fell out of Tom’s beanie and he grinned widely. Arthur’s lanky figure started to get heavy under all of the armor he was wearing from the fight. They flopped their toys around a bit more before Tom took a final thrust, stabbing it into Arthur’s neck.  
“I believe that is check mate,” Tom declared.  
“I believe you are correct, Sir. I know when I am defeated.”  
Tom laughed and pulled away, he extended a hand to shake. “Thank you, for allowing me to defend my girlfriend’s honor.”  
“Anytime, Sir Thomas.” They shook hands. “And please feel free to venture to Camelot whenever you wish.”  
They bowed to each other. Tom gave him back the sword. A small crowd had gathered and cheered lightly. The two of them bowed to the crowd like proper actors, as well.  
Pompous bastard.  
Tom came over and lent me a hand to get up. I ignored it and gave him a look of amusement crossed with irritation.  
“My boyfriend is a child.”  
“No, Darling. I am an actor.”

He took my hand, we waved goodbye to the LARPERs and kept on, over to Tower Bridge.

We held hands. Strolling down Tower Bridge as the sun hung low. As we walked the lines on his face grew more severe. He took a deep breath. I looked up at him; he pulled the beanie off his head and the sunglasses too, shoving them into his pocket. The last rays of the sun highlighted the orange tones in his hair. “Hadley, you were right, earlier.”  
The river flowed noiselessly beneath us. It glowed in the sunset which made the shadows of Tower Bridge sharper and thicker in the evening air. Squat gargoyles stared down at us.  
“I was?”  
“About having an ulterior motive. For today.”  
“Oh. Is something wrong?”  
“No,” he stopped walking. I was prompted as well. I paused in front of him, still grasping his large hand with my smaller one. He was warm, even as the cold wind blew over the bridge. “Not necessarily.”  
“What is it?”  
“I have to leave.”  
“When?”  
“Another movie. In the states. By the end of this week. I had thought you knew, but I talked to Adam the other day and he said you didn’t so.”  
“You’re telling me now.”  
“Yes. I am sorry, darling. I thought Adam had told you.”  
“Adam doesn’t tell me things. He tells other people things and then springs them on me.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t be. It was an honest mistake.” I wasn’t angry. He had to know that.  
“Can I ask you something?”  
I nodded.  
He grasped both of my hands in his, holding them so tightly I thought they’d turn blue. “Hadley. Come to the states with me.”  
I figured that was coming. How could I…why would I…? I tapped my boots. I wouldn’t look at him. I knew his eyes were that of a lost pup by an open door.  
I just—I wanted to go. Anywhere with him I would go and maybe for selfish reasons. Maybe because he was the only thing keeping me sane right now. But anywhere closer to Benjamin would feel like a betrayal. I was still playing with the idea of seeing him. I kept getting calls from his mom. I would never answer.  
“Tom.”  
“You don’t have to answer now. If you don’t want. Think about it.”  
Everything about him pleaded with me. From the hunch of his back to the shape of his brow. This was the magic of actors, but here it was real. He was really feeling this and not just pretending.  
“I can’t—think about it that is,” I admitted, “I can’t go back there. Not yet. I want to go with you, Tom, believe me I do, but I just can’t right now. I’m not ready.”  
“I understand,” his voice dropped.  
“I’m sorry.”  
“No,” he loosed his grip on my hands, “I truly do understand.”  
“I know that it’s stupid, but just the idea of going back. Even though I know that you are going to be on the east coast and he’s on the west. I’ve just separated myself so much from it.”  
He wrapped his arms around me as I started shaking. I don’t think I’ve ever cried in front of him. I’ve always tried to section out my life, put Benjamin in one box and Tom in another, but it all came pouring out. On Tower Bridge I stood crying in the arms of a man I didn’t deserve.  
“Hadley, Darling,” he held me close, my head in his chest. The warmth of his body radiated through me. Please, Tom, don’t. He ran his finger through my hair, keeping it from blowing around in the wind. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to ask this much of you.”  
“That’s the problem,” I sobbed, hitting his chest lightly, “It should be. What you asked—it should be easy.”  
“It is okay though, that it’s not, darling.”  
I kept crying. Tears I hadn’t had in a long time flowed down my face.  
“Why don’t we go home? You don’t want to keep crying here.”  
“I don’t want to go home. Take me to your house.”  
“Of course, Love. I’ll take you anywhere.”

We got to his house through teary eyes and lamp lit streets. He carried me into the house. I held his neck tightly, the softness of stubble scratching at my forehead. In his room he laid me down and cuddled up next to me. He whispered into my ear, telling me it was going to be okay and that he didn’t blame me for anything.  
“You are not a bad person, Hadley. You are just the victim of circumstance.”  
His fingers ran through my curls and wiped away my tears.  
I fell asleep in his arms. I am a bad person.  
In the morning I remembered the word I was thinking of yesterday. The word that meant: unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet marvelous. Looking at Tom, still wrapped in his arms I remembered: selcouth and I felt okay for a while.

Tom left a week later.

 

December 30. Two months before.  
“Can I tell you something?”  
“Yeah, sure.”  
Tom and I lay in his bed. Sunday morning in December, easy light filtered through the windows in between spots of rain. The crisp whiteness of his sheets, the only thing between us other than skin. I want to be in him not just next to him. Our legs are intertwined, overlapped, juxtaposed in the same spaces. He rubs my upper arm with his thumb in small infinities.  
“I love the way your nose wrinkles when you laugh.”  
“Why? Is this coming up?”  
“I think of things like that when we’re in bed together and even when we aren’t and I am here alone. I think of the things I love about you.”  
I licked my lips, “You’re weird.”  
“I love when you do that, as well. Your lips.”  
“What this?” I licked them again and smiled. “I picked that up from you.”  
“Do I do that a lot?”  
“Yes.” He rolled his tongue over his bottom lip and I knew he didn’t even realize then that he did it. “Unconsciously.”  
“I just did it, didn’t I?”  
“Yes. Now what else? Tell me more about myself.”  
“Your freckles. They are singular in their shape. I have never seen any like it and I find it very attractive.”  
“You do.” I breathed in, and looked down for a moment. He didn’t know they weren’t freckles. That I’d only had them for a short time.  
“And your curls as well.” The arm underneath me reached up to cradle my head. He held some strands in his fingers, feeling the way it bent and bowed. “The way they darken at the ends. Almost brown, it reminds me of wheat fields where we would summer in the northern isles. How the top was golden, but gave way to the soil as it blended down. I can’t get over that. You take me back to that time, whenever I see you.”  
I started to speak, but he put a finger to my lips.  
“Let me finish, Love. I have so much more to say.” He continued his monologue with the eloquence of an Elizabethan Lord. “I think it’s funny when you sneeze. You seem allergic to the English air. I can’t imagine anyone simply looking at a tea shop and doubling over from phantom pollen. Your nose scrunches, you gasp, and your chest rises so suddenly I think my heart will bound out of my own.  
“And I adore that even though I know you take ten minutes to get ready in the morning, you always walk out looking flawless. You wear jogging shorts like a runway model. I don’t get it sometimes because half the things you wear no one trying to be chic would ever dress in. Yet that plaid shirt fits any occasion. Fits you and your body. You are not a size zero, but the way you move on camera or off, is intoxicating.”  
His left hand slid down my arm to my thigh, still rubbing circles or playing a piano concerto I hadn’t yet learned.  
“You have curves that I still have not discovered. Still have not gotten the chance to touch. I feel the urge to uncover you so that I may treat every bit of you as the masterpiece that you are.”  
“You’re incorrigible.”  
“I’ve already fallen for you. Like a lead ball dropping through paper, slowly, and then all at once.”  
“Tom, really.”  
“The way you blush is certainly a plus as well.”  
My cheeks burned. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”  
“Why not? I am completely sincere.”  
“Because you are so sincere. I find myself not wanting to believe you. I cannot believe that there is someone like you that exists in this world, but here you are. In front of me, telling me that I am a masterpiece.”  
“You are, Love. These are all the things that make you whole. Together you make something wonderful.”  
Our lips met cushioned by the pillows and sheets still fumbling around the bed. We had cocooned ourselves in each other. And he kissed my neck and felt my mouth with his tongue, back and forth. My legs found the curves of his knees and he clutched onto the fat of my thigh.  
“One of those things is you,” I whispered to him between mouthfuls. My voice was so low I doubt he heard me, though.

 

March 1. Present.  
The first few weeks I refused to skype Tom. I told him it was because I didn’t want anything to feel different. It was true. I didn’t. I’m not good at change. We texted. We called. I pretended that the days weren’t days, but only hours that just happened to be one after another.  
Adam came over every day. It was annoying.  
“Have you talked to Tom?” was always his first question.  
“Not yet this morning.”  
“Are you hungry?” was usually his next.  
“Are you making it?”  
“If you’ll eat it.”  
“Maybe.” was usually my answer.  
“Have you considered my offer?” came every few days. He knew if he asked this too much I would get upset. His offer was going home and seeing Benjamin.  
“No. I have not.”  
“William called me. To ask how you were. He said you haven’t been answering. Every time he calls your line is busy.”  
“I’ll call him later.”  
Then he would make eggs or oatmeal or toast. Whatever he had bought. Honestly, Adam practically lived here. He bought all of the groceries and cooked me food. He knew I would only eat if I didn’t have to do anything or if it was cereal.  
“Cereal?” He offered me a bowl and started opening the cupboard.  
“Hit me,” I slid into one of the bar stools. “So, what’s on the menu today? Another shoot. More papers to fill out for college.”  
“No, nothing today. But you can help me sort some layouts for Amelia.”  
“I have no eye for color.”  
“You do have one for mathematics. Form is important when it comes to photography.”  
“Whatever. Lay it on me.”  
For a while we worked on photographs. Going through the shit ones. Most of them were. Adam said, even for a few that I told him were mathematically sound, he said that Amelia wouldn’t approve of them.  
“This one fits the rule of three!” I argued.  
“Sorry, Hadley. The aesthetics are completely off.”  
“This story is literally about color blocking. The aesthetics cannot be off.”  
“They can and they are.”  
The doorbell rang.  
“Not my house,” Adam admitted.  
“Not mine either.”  
“Actual child,” he stood up. “Fine, I’ll get it.”  
I turned around, watching Adam get the door. He pulled back the lock on the great white door. As soon as it opened a stream of flowers walked in the door.  
“Bloody—“  
I rolled my eyes as baskets of lilies, roses, hyacinth, lavender, columbine, anything that blossoms. My house suddenly became Gatsby trying to impress Daisy. Except worse, because I was allergic to flowers.  
“Fucking, Tom,” I sneezed.  
A voice cut through the foliage, “Just put them where they fit.” Distinctly British. Distinctly Luke’s.  
“Luke?” I grabbed a tissue to stifle a second sneeze. “Is Tom with you?” I wove through and got to the door. A still wide eyed Adam was against the wall, trying to stay out of the way. The stream of walking flowers stopped and a promenade of people in jumpsuits walked out. Into white vans labeled for the trade, like clowns and their cars.  
“No, sorry. Tom’s not.”  
“Oh, no. That’s okay. I didn’t expect him too.” The tone of my voice betrayed me. This was something Tom would do. He’d want to see my face as it turned from anger, for invading my house with flowers, to happiness in seeing him after such long weeks.  
“Truly, I am sorry for all of this. Tom insisted,” Luke smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.  
“Its whatever.” I felt the rising in my chest and turned my head just in time to miss spewing snot rockets as Adam or Luke.  
“Are you okay?”  
“Just a cold,” I glanced at the arrangements, “Probably.”

Adam got over his shock and brushed off his sweater. “Did Tom pick all of these out?”  
“No,” Luke answered, “he wanted too, but,” he paused glancing my direction sadly. “He did ask for specific flowers, but I arranged them all.”  
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Louisiana with him?”  
Adam spoke before Luke could answer me. The taller Luke flopped his head trying to figure out who to look at. “You? All of these. You have quite the eye.”  
Literally, stop flirting. I am trying to ask about Thomas. I rolled my eyes as Adam stood noticeably straighter and fixed the tuck of his sweater. His voice rose an octave, but kept his long vowels. If the short, but lithe, black man had hair that could do anything other than stick right up, I was sure he would fix that as well. Unfortunately, his curls were too tight to his thick skull for that.  
And we were all still standing in the doorway.  
“Thank you,” Luke graciously obliged, and then, “I’m needed more over here to work out business matters. Tom is the actor, he manages that by himself.”  
Luke had a taught face, high cheekbones, like Tom, and he smiled small-ly, in that mannered way that the British should. He seemed pleased by Adam’s complement, but unsure how to take it.  
“He also wanted me to give you this,” Luke handed an envelope to me with my name on it in the scrawling, but looped handwriting of Tom Hiddleston.  
I ripped it open. Adam kept on about how amazing the flowers were in terms of style. Adam should have talked more about how un-amazing his outfit was in terms of style. He looked like the Hulk in a deep purple sweater he claimed was maroon, and dark green tweed trousers.  
Luke had much more style, in a crisp grey suit, than the quote-on-quote assistant to Amelia Travis the Editor-in-Chief of London Vogue. I could almost choke.  
“You had good weather bringing them all over here?”  
“Fine, weather. Warm for this time of year.”  
They talked while I zoned out. Focused completely on Tom’s letter. He had hand wrote the entire thing and it appeared to be nearly five pages front and back.

 _This is excessive._  I sighed.  
I read it anyway, well the beginning. The sound of his soft English accent came to me immediately.

_Hadley, Darling,_

_I miss you. It goes without saying how much I miss you and the touch of your hands. How I long to feel the moisture of your lips on mine. Louisiana’s humidity does nothing in coming close to the warmth of you by my side. Oh, but I wish you were here!_

I felt like I was being written a love letter from Mr. Darcy.

_The bayou. The Jazz. I feel as though I have been dropped into the 1920s. You know how much I crave after that era. Smooth tones and speakeasies sound so ethereal, sometimes I can hardly imagine they existed, but here it is not just a dream._   
_Anyway, Love, how are things? How are you? I hope you like my gifts. I asked Luke to get you everything you liked and all of the things that remind me of you. The flowers are only the beginning._

Oh boy.

_If you look you’ll see that they are all the species named in Hamlet to describe Ophelia. I have always felt that you and she were nearly kin. I see so much of her in you and sometimes that saddens me, but I know that unlike Hamlet I will not give up on you. I shall fight with you until the end. I hope for you to know that._   
_I am in love with you, Darling. I go to sleep thinking of you. Thinking of your words and your tongue as if I could reach out and be with you. The thought of you spurs me on each day. Mr. Hank Williams had his muse and so do I. Which seems fitting._   
_Recently, acting had begun talking its toll on me. Being famous is grand, don’t get me wrong, but occasionally, it would be nice to rest, and I have found that in you, with you._   
_The letter drooled on about like that. Until on the second page he ended it with a swish and a signature._   
_Love,_   
_Thomas_

  
The rest, turning out to be the bulk of the letter was entirely a P.S. section about what he was planning to do to me when he got back. I read the words “ravish you” and “eat you” then decided to leave it for later.  
By then Adam and Luke had moved on.  
“Perhaps, you could show me some more of your skills in aesthetics,” Adam mired playfully.  
“That wouldn’t be a problem. Over Lunch?”  
“I’ll have my people call your people.”  
“Yeah, do that,” Luke smiled.  
I nudged Adam with my elbow, “Way to be subtle.”  
They both blushed.  
I sneezed.

The next day Luke brought chocolate covered strawberries. Adam invited him in for tea and he actually came in. A new development. I disappeared into the living room, biting into my fruits while they chatted energetically in the kitchen. More less weather more compliments. Less distant more engaged. Adam was a master in seduction and Luke was eating it up.  
I sneezed for two weeks. Adam asked if I wanted to get rid of the flowers since they were making me so miserable. I stared at the lavender between strong fluted lilies and said, “No.”  
Luke’s visits came less often, but each time he brought more presents. By the time Tom was giving me a gift basket of my favorite cereals I decided this had to stop.

I gave in and skyped him. No amount of texts or calls could quell him. He wanted to see my face. I wanted to see him too, but I wanted him to be here. Do you ever just want to see someone, talk to someone, just touch them and see their smile, but they are just so far away? I was stuck between avoiding the fact that he was gone and dealing with it like an adult.  
That night I put on my pajamas. Simple shorts and a t-shirt, and booted up my computer. His excited face showed up almost immediately.  
“You need to stop with the gifts already, Tom.”  
His smile lit up, raising his already high cheeks more. He was clean shaven now, to play Hank Williams. All of his dimples were given free reign. As much as I liked him with scruff, I’ll admit that shaved Tom is not bad either.  
“What?” I ordered.  
“I am so happy to see your face again. I missed it.”  
“The presents, Tom. You’re running Luke ragged.”  
“Your hair’s a bit” he cocked his head to the side, examining me, “Have you parted it differently, Love? I like it.”  
“Tom.”  
“I miss seeing you in pajamas. I miss taking them off you.”  
“America has made you thirsty,” I remarked.  
“Sorry, Darling. Of course I’ll stop the gifts if you’d like me too.”  
“I would.”  
“I miss you.”  
“Same,” I smirked.  
He was wearing a hideous plaid shirt and the apartment behind him somehow managed to look messy in its scarcity of objects, but that wasn’t important. His eyes were sunken in a bit more than normal and he was thinner than before he left. It couldn’t have been more than seven in the evening there, but he already, physically was tired. It was the way he looked after he came over from photo shoots, and interviews all day. He’d walk in and we would lie down in bed just as soon. I thought of playing with the small curls in his hair, but there was a screen in the way.  
My phone buzzed. I glanced at it then ignored it.  
“How have you been, Love?”  
“The same. Bored without you.”  
“Did you get my letter?”  
I tried to hide the flush of my cheeks, “Yeah.”  
“Did you like it?” He grinned devilishly.  
“Uhmm, yeah. It was really erm…”  
“Arousing.”  
“That’s the word.”  
“Are you embarrassed, Love?” Tom was really working the whole pet names.  
“You are so thirsty, Thomas Hiddleston. I fear for my life when you finally come back.”  
“You should,” he yawned.  
“Now that is the picture of arousal, right there.”  
“Don’t torture me, Darling.”  
“You should sleep if you’re tired.”  
“That coming from you.”  
“It’s not that I don’t want to sleep. I can’t. You can and you should.”  
“Don’t go.”  
“Go to sleep.”  
“Don’t go.”  
“Take your computer to the bed.”  
He stood up, the screen with him and walked begrudgingly to the bedroom. He laid it on the bed as he plugged it into the wall. Not wanting it to die while we were talking. I don’t think I could’ve handled it either.  
When he finished, he looked into the camera, “Okay. What now?”  
“Take off your clothes.”  
His smile was sheepish and sly. Tom was always good at getting what he wanted. “Anything you want.” First went the hideous plaid shirt, his arms raised I saw the way his muscles had flattened somewhat and his ribs poked out. Then went his boots and jeans. It reminded me a city boy suddenly deciding to follow his dream of becoming a Texas rancher only to find out the aesthetics were harder than originally expected.  
“Now, Love?” Only in his boxers, he blinked slowly, trying to stay awake.  
“Get in the bed.”  
“Don’t you want me to do anything else?”  
“I want you to sleep. Not drowsily strip tease.”  
Getting into the bed he covered up his legs with the blanket and positioned the computer at an angle where I could see the length of him. His face was close and he wrapped his arms around a pillow. He stared into my eyes with a lonely expression.  
I laid down on my side of the world. “Now sleep.”  
“Only because I get to look at you,” he reached a hand out and touched his screen. “I wish I was there with you.”  
“You’re here with me now. And that’s enough,” I whispered, “Now, close your eyes. I’ll be here.”  
He tried his best not to fall asleep. In the end, I lost sight of his blue-grey eyes. I stayed on with him, watching him sleep, imagining that I was beside him, close enough to feel. But he was on another continent. Just like everyone I've ever loved.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I've changed things around a bit. I didn't like how the chapters were, all the meat is still here just in longer chapters. This one is the newest chapter though. Newest update. So if you've been waiting for the new chapter this is it!
> 
> Sorry for rearranging.

 

March 2. Present. 

Morning spilled through the windows. Spores of dust sparkled in the light, I opened my eyes slowly. Tom was still on the computer, blurry, but still there. My glasses had been lost to bed. His screen had shifted in the night and I was now getting backstage access to his nose hairs.  _Just what I wanted to wake up too._ Smiling, I sat up in bed and stretched, arms tall. Even though he wasn’t actually here, in London, lying beside me in the mass of pillows and blankets which Adam had adorned my bed with, I slept. I slept like he was here. I sat there watching him for a few minutes then shut off the computer.

Downstairs Adam walked in. He had taken to slamming the door to announce his entrance ever since the one incident. Even with Tom not here, I suspected he had already taken it to habit.

I searched the bed for my glasses. They were half smashed between two pillows. After placing them on my nose I grabbed for my phone. One missed call. 3:00 pm.

 

Correction: Afternoon spilled through the windows.

 

Wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, I trudged downstairs and met with an extremely flustered Adam.  _Great._

“What’s your problem?” I lazily watched him romp around the kitchen, putting dishes away in his favorite suit. Gray to offset the tone of his skin and a light pink tie which he pulled at every few moments. “What are you doing?”

“Luke is coming over for dinner.”

“Huh.” I dropped my phone on the counter. Pulling out a bowl and some Reese’s Puffs, I poured milk on them before sitting down at the island.

Adam then seemed to think that the counter was vexed and started scrubbing at it, I refused to lift my bowl as he came at me with a rag in hand.

“Luke.”

“I got that part. Why is he coming over here?” Forcefully, my cereal bowl was lifted and cleaned under. “Dude, what the fuck? Calm down.”

“I have flatmates.”

“So they are more of a nuisance than me?”

He hesitated, “Yes.”

“Doesn’t mean you can use my house.”

“Your Aunt’s,” he corrected, “And after all I do for you it is hardly much to ask.”

“Do I have to leave?”

“Not if you don’t want. You can join us if you’d like.”

“Eww. No,” I spooned a mouthful of Puffs into my mouth in disgust. “I don’t want to be around the two of you  _flirting._ ”

“Hadley, don’t be a child.”

“You take away any alcohol I buy as if I’m going to drown in it. According to you, I am a child.”

“I do that for your health.”

“Look at me when you say that,” I challenged. My phone rang. I turned the volume off.

He stared at me, “Your health.”

I ate more cereal, “And I’m a child.”

He moved onto sterilizing the sink, “What?”

“Take off your suit jacket if you’re going to clean,” I yelled in his direction.

“Oh, right,” he looked at the cuffs of his jacket in confusion.

His spree lasted for a while, but at least he took off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. I was on my third bowl of cereal by the time he finished the living room. That was much more of a mess than the kitchen. Adam usually kept that pretty tidy, but I would yell at him if he touched the living room. All of my programming equipment was in there. The office upstairs had gotten too small and I needed the TV for the extra screen space.

This time I only gave a warning, “You mess with my set up, I’ll kill you.”

“I won’t touch your computer whatever’s,” he sassed.

Later I heard a, “What were you doing in here?”

Looking around the corner, I saw him holding up an old banana peel. “What I usually do.”

“Which is what, act like an American?”

“I am so…your point?”

“Hadley, look at this: crisp bags, dead flower petals, bowls of,” he smelled one, “I am going to choke, and half opened bottles of…is this Monster Energy? Where did you even get this?”

“I know a guy.”

“You don’t know anyone,” he said, perplexed. My phone buzzed where it sat on the counter.

“I know William,” I leaned back in my seat, more cereal was eaten.

“Is your guy William?”

“No, someone else.”

“So someone you’ve slept with.”

“You’re not wrong.”

He huffed, hunched over and defeated, “I do not understand Americans.”

“Nah, this isn’t the American side of me. It’s the one who stayed up for two days last week coding a website for this guy in Colorado.”

“What website?”

“weedamerican.com”

Adam put his arms up in dismay, “Like I said. Americans.”

 

Adam threw out most of the living room then came back into the kitchen. “I cannot handle you sometimes.”

“Then go away,” I shrugged. “Eat dinner somewhere real.”

“The last few times we went for lunch he mentioned how he really missed having a home cooked meal. So I offered. Beside, we will get to be alone here.”

“Forgetting someone.” As if in protest my phone buzzed again. It had turned nearly a circle since I sat it there earlier. Adam glanced at it for a moment then went back to what he was doing.

“You are going to leave,” Adam nodded.

“I never confirmed that.”

“It’s you. You would feel too uncomfortable.”

I sighed and looked straight in his eyes, “I still get to eat your food, right?”

“I’ll leave out leftovers, yes.”

“Chill.”

“Although, with the amount of cereal you’ve eaten I highly doubt you will be hungry for any.”

“I’m feeling empty today.”

“I am happy because you’re eating, but not encouraged by that statement.”

I leaned on my elbow, “When is he coming?”

Adam made a show of looking at his hundred dollar Dolce watch, “It is 5:22 now, so about 7:00.”

“I’ll be gone before then.” The phone went off again and this time when I didn’t answer, Adam noticed I was purposefully ignoring it.

“Who’s calling you? It’s been the same number the past four times.”

“No one.”

“Hadley,” I was given the look. That one that makes me feel like a child. I avoided his gaze.

“Benjamin’s mom,” I shrugged.

“You ever get the grand idea that it’s actually Ben and he wants to speak with you. You should—“

“His name is Benjamin. And I’ll deal with it when I’m ready. His mother can wait.”

“Why do you insist on calling him Benjamin?”

“That’s his name.”

“Aren’t you the only one who actually calls him that?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why do you insist?”

“I like his name. His whole name. It was one of the things I loved about him. I use it when I love him and I still do. Is that a good enough answer for you,” I left my bowl of cereal on the counter and walked out. My spoon clanged against the side. I went up to my bedroom.

 

I took a quick shower and put some warm clothes on, jeans, t-shirt, and a pea-coat. By that time the smell of Adam’s cooking wafted up the stairs. If I wasn’t so mad right now, I’d go down and watch him cook. His grandmother raised him and she taught him all her secret recipes. Honestly, sometimes I wish she was my babysitter and not him. She was unable to speak so...that would have been severely benefit. I stomped down the stairs and left as soon as I could.

Adam just—he infuriated me sometimes. Why can’t I just handle my own shit without him getting all judgmental? We had spent three months having this silent battle of wills on me calling Benjamin, of me going to see Benjamin. I didn’t want to right now. He was the whole reason I couldn’t make myself go to Louisiana with Tom. Louisiana and San Francisco were nowhere near each other and I still couldn’t do it. Doesn’t he get that?

Not to mention I was being harassed by his idiotic mother calling me. I don’t even know how she got my number. Or why she was calling. Louise had always hated me. Considering the fact that I was to blame for Benjamin’s accident, she actually had a reason too now.

I stormed to a nearby park and sat down on a bench. It rang again as soon as I sat down. Angrily, I answered it. “Please, STOP calling me, Louise,” then hung up before whoever was on the other end could get a word in. I shut it off. I couldn’t handle anyone bothering me anymore.

I folded my arms and doubled over, inhaling heavily. I tried not to cry. Mothers and their children passed by me, kids played in the grass, a man sat eating out of a soup container from Pret, and a couple held each other on a bench across from me. I wanted to think that they were there to mock me. To prove to me how alone I was. The Husband looked at her with a sudden intensity as if he knew something, knew how he loved her more than anything, knew that she was the most beautiful woman in his eyes, knew that tomorrow he would buy her roses and surprise her with making dinner.

Looking at them, I hated myself.

“This is not what I wanted.”

“It’s what you’ve got tho,” A hoarse Scottish man replied, sitting down next to me.

“William.”

“Ow did you know, lass?”

“Other than the stench?” Alcohol dripped from his pores.

“I can’t ‘elp it.”

“Do you have any—“ William handed me a bottle of whiskey. “Thanks.”

“You know me, lass.” He patted me on the back, sloppily. William was a drunken old man I met at  _The Labrador_ when I first came to London and decided to drink myself silly. The bar was so old I wasn’t surprised to find someone as ancient as him sitting at the counter. Those popular bars annoyed me,  _Tiger, Nitro,_ they were all too loud. And full of teenage wannabes. They were all so unreal. William, however, was the realest person I knew. He stank of beer and only owned one red plaid flannel. William was one of the few people I actually enjoyed being around. This prehistoric Scottish man was my best friend.

I drank some whisky. “How’s Pablo Picasso?”

Pablo was William’s Schnauzer. He had three legs and was deaf. That dog was a national treasure. Pablo was also the nicest dog in the history of the world.

“Still waggin’. An you?”

“I’m here.” My head was hung low, still leaning on my knees I took another sip of whiskey and wiped my eyes.

“There’s no room for tears here, lass. Not when there’s still whiskey.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You can’t ‘ide from me. I’v been ‘round too long.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He took the whisky from me and chugged. “I’d never make you, dear.”

“I can’t do this anymore, William.”

“I was where you wer when I was young.”

“I’d say you still are.”

“Funny, lassie.” He took another drink, “Ya know, lass, I never felt like I was good enough. I was hideous, my teeth weren’t straight, an I had grey hairs early as twenty-three. I was thirty then an the longest relationship I had just ended with my girl getting married to my brother. Heart shattered,” he held his chest for emphasis. “I doubted if a person like me wa worth living.”

“Everybody has a sad story, William. None of us deserve to live more than another.”

“Tat’s not true, Hadley. You’v so much more. Right now, you’r not happy with your situation—“

“Why should I be?”

William nearly wacked me with the bottle, “I’v never met your boyfriend, Thomas, but ya’re lucky. The way you talk about him. I used ta talk like that about someone an I lost her. You don’t want ta regret that comes wit losin’ ta one that saw you better.”

I sighed, “He can find better than me. Someone who can give him as much love as he’s given me.”

“Why can’t tat be you?”

“I don’t know. Because it just can’t.”

“Ya’re olding onto you’re past ta much. Ben was a good man. An he was yer best friend, but now if you don’t let em go…”

“I can’t.”

“You still love em, lass.”

“He deserved better than me too.”

“You can’t know tat for sure.”

“William, I loved him. I still love pieces of him. But the thought of him hurts me.”

“And what about Thomas? Ow does  _he_ make you feel?”

“Thomas doesn’t hurt.”

William patted his knees as if that was the end of the conversation. “Well, lass, I think tere’s your answer.” He handed me the rest of the whisky. “Ya need this more than me,” he said. There less than half left. At this point anything to take my mind off was well accepted.

“Look, dear, I was tol’d by a man much wiser than me that, depression is a lastin state a sadness not out a circumstance but of discontent with yerself. So, take the road tat makes ya question yer discontent.”

 _William._ His bright eyes smiled at me, trying to override the sadness that poured out of my own expression. “Don’t turn owt like me, Hadley,” he said, and then he got up and left me.

The couple was still sitting across the way ogling at each other. I watched her this time. She didn’t shy away from his gaze or flinch at his touch. She wasn’t worried that every moment together might be the one when he realized that she wasn’t giving as much or herself to him as he was to her. She knew that despite her hollow heart she was all he wanted and he was everything she needed. They touched hands, rings intertwining.

Tom looked at me that way once. The day he told me he loved me. He saw me without the flaws.

I sat the bottle of whiskey down and put my hands in my coat pockets. The cool of winter finally getting to me and I realized that I had walked out without so much as a scarf. Wind blew through the trees, knocking down the few remaining leaves refusing death. The grass trembled with a grey-blue hue and I shivered. This was all noise; I pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket that I hadn’t known was there. Round trip ticket to San Francisco.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me comments, bros. Good or bad. I'd love to hear your feedback!

February 16. One month before.

 

“Okay, right there. Turn your head a bit. Yes, good,” Francine instructed. I was in the middle of modeling for H&M. Roger had set it up after I told him I liked to shop there. I wasn’t expecting this, however. For some reason they wanted me to frolic. I had a hard time even smiling, how can they expect me to frolic.

The shoot was on the coast near this little fishing town in Wales, getting ready for their spring collection. Tom had driven me out here. He thought that he could get a cottage and we could stay there for the weekend. We hadn’t seen each other much in the past few weeks. He was filming a limited series for BBC, the _Nightwatcher,_ but this weekend he was off.

I stood in the wet sand gazing out toward the water, while one of the make models was supposed to come up behind me and act as though we liked each other. Rodney was the most awkward model I knew.

“Sorry, uem, Hadley,” he mumbled, “Is it okay if my hand’s here?”

“Yeah, do whatever you need too,” I shrugged. Also for some reason my American accent always caught him off guard. I could feel him jump whenever I spoke.

Francine took a couple of shots then sent us off to change.

Britany pointed me toward the changing tent. I took off blouse I was wearing, before I even got inside. Britany was used to me doing that by now, but Rodney’s eyes widened. He turned away quickly his face bright red. Britany put a sun dress on me from the rack and gladiator sandals that wrapped up to my knees, and some jewelry. “What’s this for?”

“Festival wear.”

“H&M does festival wear?”

“Yeah,” she said. Britany retouched my makeup. She was about my age with mahogany dyed hair down to her shoulders that was pulled back in French braid. She was the definition of an aspiring designer, all of her clothes were thrift shop reworks. She’d sown buttons onto her tee and ripped her own jeans. 

“It’s cold.”

She handed me a white blazer, “here, wear this.”

 

Outside more pictures were taken. In the end, Francine wanted all of us playing at the edge of the water. So, just as the sun was going down my toes went in the arctic waters of Wales. Not something I ever wanted to experience. All the models, including me, crossed the frozen expressions off our faces as soon as the camera came on.

“Okay, kids,” Francine exclaimed. “I’ve what I needed.”

“Thank, fucking God,” Raven ran out of the water and commandeered a towel.

Rodney handed me one, “Here, Hadley, I’ve one for you.”

“Thanks.” I wiped off my legs and started to undo my sandals.

“Um, so,” Rodney started, I could see his toes wiggling nervously in the sand. “I was just—erm wondering if you were—“

Raven’s screeching interrupted him, “Oh my God. Is that Tom Hiddleston!” She ran up to him, walking down the beach. “I love your movies! Also, why are you here? Will you take a picture with me?”

I stood up slowly. Rodney was still trying to get words out. I yawned and watched Tom try to nicely push the crowd of gawkers away from him, namely Raven. “I’m sorry. I can’t right now. I’m here to see someone. Perhaps later.” The remorse in his eyes were genuine.

“You’re here to see someone? What? Who?” Raven stuttered.

I dried the ends of my hair off with the towel, then handed it to Rodney, “Thanks.”

“Uh course.”

“And can you give these to Britany,” I gave him my sandals as well.

“Uh course.”

I went to Tom and the seas parted for me. Pretty sure most of the people on set were intimidated by me anyway. They watched me with startled eyes.

“Darling,” he came up awkwardly and wrapped his arm around my waist, kissing me on the forehead. “I came to get you.”

Raven’s jaw dropped.

I sighed tiredly, “I just have to change and then we can go.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Could be.”

“What?” Raven choked.

“Okay.” I took his hand and led him to the tent where I changed and we left. All the while Raven and the others followed wild-eyed.

“Her. He is with her!” I heard Raven exclaim angrily. As I said goodbye to the director and Tom and I went to his car, Raven glared at me. I rolled my eyes and continued on my way.

In the car Tom stopped and put his arm around the seat, looking at me.

“What,” I said.

“What would you like to eat?”

“I don’t care.”

His eyes were grey today. Like the clouds that began gathering and the sweater he wore. It was heavy like a cardigan and very soft.

“There’s a nice restaurant in town.”

“I don’t really want to go to a restaurant. I’m tired. Besides it’s probably closed by now. It’s already four.”

“Okay. What shall we do then?”

“Don’t care,” I stared vacantly out the front window. His fingers played absently around my neck. “Can we just drive?”

“Of course, Darling.” He kept his arm around the top of my seat as he turned the key with his other hand and drove off. “Actually, I want to show you something wonderful.”

We went up the coast then down a winding road and up onto a mountain that reached heights without even trying. The green changed from grey to a saturated blue as we climbed closer to the sun. Sheep grazed in stone fields and I thought about how it would be nice to have a baby lamb one day. I could live here. I could lie down in the grass beneath an oak tree and make my home there. Just me, the breeze, and the way the sunset kisses the horizon. I could forget and drown out the noise in my head with noiselessness.

Tom brought me back to reality with a touch. His hand on mine, rubbing the spot between my thumb and forefinger like he was calming an ocean.

He turned into a small dirt drive that just went up. And when it finally ended we were at the top of a hill, staring out at the horizon.

“Beautiful, is it not?” The sun reached down to pull up the moon as we watched. He kept hold of me, squeezing my hand every once in a while to make sure I was still paying attention. How could I not? My eyes lost the ability to blink and my lungs forgot how to breathe, and sitting there watching him, watching the sun, I realized that the world is much bigger than any heartache I feel.

“Yeah, it is.”

I felt him staring at me with an expectant grin on his face. The intensity that his eyes tore out of me was intoxicating, as if he saw in me what I was envisioning in the sunset. It’s a signature thought that I held that sort of sway over him. I quickly ripped it from my mind, I was not that special. I was not that significant.

 

“Here,” he pulled his ipod out of the cup holder, the string connecting it to the dashboard twisted wildly. Tom clicked through to a playlist. It was one of his favorites. I knew because I would always see him listening to it when he walked in the door. Talking out his headphones so that he could hear our kiss, but the music still played. “Get out of the car.”

He rolled the windows down and a flush of cold air rejuvenated me. I opened the door and the music came through the stereo.

“What are you doing?”

He got out and ran around the car. He bowed in front of me offering his hand, “May I have this dance?”

I reached for him. “I don’t really know how.” He grinned, taking hold of my hand and showing me where to put it.

“Perfect time to learn.”

My stomach growled with butterflies I’d never had, until the moment the music picked up and he wrapped his arm around me. Touching my waist gently, he reigned me in. I laid my head on his chest.

“This song always reminds me of you,” he whispered. I felt it was we twirled slowly, and the words flowed out of the car windows on the breeze. I don’t know how you do it, how you dance so freely when there’s a war on. My head spins a thousand miles an hour and I have to work to keep sane, but Tom never seems that way. He walks in exhausted, but with a smile on his face. He has an effort I just don’t. He has a weight on him I can never understand. I think this because I know those eyes. They look like mine when I dare to glance in the mirror, but only sometimes. He’s so much better at keeping it all in or maybe letting it all out. What’s your secret Tom? Is it the dancing, because I could do with more of it?

Any way I can hold you, any chance I get to forget who I am in your arms. Do I do that for you? Let you forget the horde of fans and the camera and the magazines that want to make you something you’re not. I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine people stifling me, holding back my freedom. I hope I don’t do that to you. I hope that even in my misery I let you be you, the way you always let me be me.

“I wanted to dance with you since the moment I saw you,” he said. “I wanted to teach you how. I think I knew by just looking that you didn’t.”

“That I didn’t dance, specifically?”

“Not necessarily. Just that you didn’t know how escape. Maybe you still don’t, but this—this is how I do it.” Tom looked down at me, “And it’s even better with you.”

He tucked the baby hairs that were falling into my face behind my ear. Then tenderly lifted my chin up to meet his. We kissed. You know sometimes there are those moments when it feels like your life is a movie. Like if a cameraman popped up right now to capture this innocence you wouldn’t be surprised.

The hunger of his bottom lip and the unexpected fullness of his tongue, as the last rays of sunlight were swallowed up between our crevices, it would not have surprised me to find Billy Wilder yelling cut in the background.

 

The music never stopped and neither did we as his hand went from my chin to my neck to my shoulders, and then back and thigh.

“Damn, you drive me crazy,” he mumbled between half open sighs and my hand inside his pants.

The car jolted as his back hit it. I jumped on him, wrapping my legs around as much of him as I could. Our teeth clanging in the infancy of our want. He scratched for the door handle. Ripping it open with flayed muscles and laying me down on the backseat. My dress came off, thrown to the other side of the seat where it lay silently, saddened that it wasn’t part of the scene anymore. His shirt was next as I rolled my fingers over his abdomen in search of something I knew well enough to bite. Tom was caught up in my hair, tangling it in knots with his tongue and writing a sonnet on my forehead.  I unbuckled him. I think we kissed more than ever. In every nook of ourselves high on the thought of doing it in the backseat. This is what it is, I thought, this is freedom. I don’t know why I thought that. Maybe he was rubbing off on me.

The car door closed, shocking us into heat. It was cramped as he pulled down his pants. His head hit the ceiling and he cringed. I laughed as he rubbed the sore spot.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, it’s nothing.”

“Here,” I took ahold of his head and he let me pull it down to my level. He was hunched over me, a great arch in his back. “Where does it hurt?”

He pointed to the top of his head. I kissed there. Hair scratched my lips.

“Here too,” Tom said, pointing to his forehead.

I kissed him.

“And here.”

This time it was his nose.

“Here.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if your lips were ever in danger,” I joked, “other than from me.”

            We gained back our momentum. They don’t tell you how uncomfortable fucking in a car is, especially when your boyfriend is a literal frost giant. Somehow that was at the back of my mind as we encompassed each other. His playlist gave us the beat to which we rocked. His cock hard and inside me. We ached for each other the way someone sings with no voice.

 

 

            As we sat in the backseat of his car, gazing out the front window at the stars, more stars than I had ever seen, he held me in his arms. Arms that were weathered from fake fights and times when his veins strained to see past muscle and other times when the skinny blue was all that was there. “Were you happy with him?”

            “What kind of question is that?”

“Sorry. You don’t have to answer.”

I sighed, “I was. You know that one person you’ll forever have love for—how no matter the oceans you travel or the plans you make with someone else, you still have that one person that gave you happiness in the sort of inexplicable way that a caterpillar knows how to fly once it becomes a butterfly. He was that.” I paused. The air within him realized and I felt his whole body deflate. “But I also realize that there is more than one type of happiness. Everyone that comes into your life brings their own sort of heart.”

“I want you to find happiness again. It may not be the same happiness that you had with him, but I promise you, I’ll try to make you happy too.”

 

 

August 18. Eight months before the Present; before meeting Tom.

 

I opened the fridge and peered in. The harshness of the light blinded me. Where was the milk?

“Where’s the milk?” I asked Adam. He was standing there, hand on hip, halfcocked, giving me that disappointed stare. All I do is quietly tiptoe downstairs to get some food and I’m presented with an obstacle. I’m too old to have a babysitter. I’m literally in England for two minutes and my Aunt already hands me off to some pencil pushing, glorified babysitter. Can’t I just live in peace and eat my cereal without having someone take the milk from me.

“I put it away.”

I yawned, “You mean you hid it.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“You didn’t have to hide the milk.”

“You won’t pay attention otherwise.”

“Not true,” I started going through the cabinets, leaving the fridge wide open. Adam immediately went to close it. The slight bang set my senses on edge.

“Hadley, you’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up.”

I scavenged through old granola bars and boxes of pancake mix. My legs scratched together: chaffed from dancing all night, cut from fingernails hiding what they were meant for. “Straight to the point, then.”

“I can’t watch you do this to yourself and your Aunt is worried about you.”

“Uh huh.”

“Hadley,” he threatened.

“I honestly,” I grunted as I reached far back into the cabinet to grasp the hidden milk. He must have had to get the step ladder to put it back there. Without it Adam was way too short. “—don’t understand why.”

“What?”

“Look. Amelia can worry all she wants. That’s her problem. I am fine.”

He flipped on the light switch. I cringed. It burned my retinas and sparked knives in my head. “Dude,” I whispered harshly.

“You’re hungover at four in the afternoon. You’ve been in a state of either hungover, high, or drunk for the past week and a half. You’re not even supposed to be drinking with the medicine you’re on. I don’t know if this is what Americans define as ‘okay’ but by English standards you are not.”

“Adam, turn the fucking light off. And stop shouting.”

“Who is sleeping in your bed tonight? Someone you met at a bar or a junkie that gave you free weed?”

I poured milk into my cereal bowl and started eating while also attempting to keep the lights out of my eyes. “Actually, it’s the heiress to that fancy diamond company. And she’s sleeping so keep it down.”

“Gemma Salvatorno. Bloody hell, Hadley. Do you know what kind of bad press that could bring on your Aunt? OR her?”

“Hmm… no, not really,” I shrugged.

“Hadley,” he scoffed.

“What? She’s good in bed. Besides, it’s not like this was the first time.”

He threw his hands up in defeat. “What if someone finds out about this?”

“What? That she’s gay? Haven’t you heard, gay marriage is legal in the UK. It’s okay to be gay now, Adam.” I patted him on the shoulder. The movement thrust a new blade into my frontal cortex.

“Just—you are,” his face got red. “You’re going down a dark hole that you won’t be able to pull yourself out of. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

I leaned against the counter, “People talk about dying too much,” I said. “I’m breathing, aren’t I?”

 

You want to know the secret to not drowning: picking your poison long before it comes to that. I picked mine when I realized surviving was too strong of a word, and how unhappiness is more than _just._


	8. Chapter 8

March 2. Present.

 

It was cold. I’d walked out without much in the way of layers. I didn’t want to go back home. Where Adam was, where he could judge me more on the things I can’t control.

I had to though, I needed my passport. The passport that was in my room, hid under the bed only because Thomas said that I shouldn’t just leave it out.

I stood across the street, the living room blinds were flung open. I always left them closed, the light bothered me, and I didn’t care to look out on dirty streets and wayward pedestrians. Light filtered out into the dark and I saw Adam and Luke sitting on the couch. They were laughing. Drinking wine Luke probably bought. The window was cocked open. I always forgot the heat was on and Adam liked it cool. Adam had put on that clichéd video of wood burning on the TV. I couldn’t believe he’d touched my set up for that.

I stemmed my anger. I wasn’t here to spy on Adam’s date. He didn’t matter.

So, I climbed up the fire escape. I wasn’t exactly the most fit and even with my height it took a good while to drag the ladder down. By the time I climbed in the bathroom window I was exhausted. I sat in the bathtub for a few minutes catching my breath. Then got up and resumed the mission.

I grabbed a backpack, a leather one Roger let me take from a shoot. I grabbed my passport from under the mattress and some other necessities: underwear, bras, an extra t-shirt, phone charger, pills to make me happy, and wallet.

Lastly, I put on a light sweater to combat the cold. It was one of my favorites, gray and soft. I brought it to my face and sniffed it to make sure it was clean-ish, it smelled like Thomas’ pillow cases. Musk and wildflowers, the way the forest smells after it rains and wood burned on a campfire.

I left the same way I got in.

 

September 8. Six months before.

 

“Literally, do not make me go in there,” I threatened Adam as he basically pushed me down Prince Street.

“You have to. Your doctor in America said that you have to continue to see a psychiatrist here.”

“So, he’s in America, how’s he supposed to know if I am or not?”

“Hadley,” he huffed. “Would you like me to bring up last week’s incident again?”

I rolled my eyes, “No, Adam, I would not.” I gave in and kept walking. “You’re not my father. I don’t have to do what you say.”

“Don’t be a child. You need help and I can’t give you the kind that she can.”

“Whatever. What’s her name again?”

“Genevieve.”

 

“Hello, Hadley,” she reached her hand out to shake mine. Adam hadn’t come up here with me. I was alone at the top of a tower with some Freudian psychologist who was probably going to probe my brain. This was not ideal. “I’m Genevieve. It’s nice to meet you.”

I shook her hand. “Yeah, you too.”

“Please sit,” She motioned to a plush beige chair across from an almost identical red one.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

“No, I’m good.”

She sat down. We were both sitting. She picked up a notebook and glanced over it. “So, let’s see. These are some notes sent over from your old psychiatrist in the hospital. There’s quite a lot on you here, but” she looked up at me over the top of her glasses, “I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me about this Ben fellow.”

“Benjamin was my boyfriend.”

“Not anymore.”

“He was in an accident and now he’s in a coma.”

“And did you love him?”

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant.”

“Love is never irrelevant, Hadley.”

“To you, it is.”

She ignored my unwillingness to talk about it. “Why did you love him?”

Genevieve hardly seemed like a sensitive psych. I loved him because he was comfortable. What other reason is there to love? I loved him because I knew when he was sad just by the way he turned down his lip. He was predictable. I knew the next words, when he teased. I knew how many times I could count on being kissed each day, and when he would come to pick me up in the morning along with my favorite bagel sandwiches. I knew his heartbeat better than I did mine. I knew how he’d fix his hair before I saw him. I knew him better than I knew anyone else. And I loved him for that.

“He was my best friend,” I replied. “Nothing less.”

 

March 3. Present.

I slept on the plane because the anxiety wore me out. I bit my fingernails until I had none and tapped out a sonata on my armrest, much to the irritation of the passenger beside me. She was an older woman with stark white hair and a long flowing dress in a floral pattern. I wanted to explain to her my situation. I wanted to excitedly tell her my story. I wasn’t that kind of person. I don’t talk to people, especially ones who look at me like I’m a buzzing fly. We had a glare off about three hours in then never acknowledged each other again.

What was I doing? Am I absolutely nuts? I don’t even know. Yes.

_Forgive me, Ben. I’m trying not be bound by my failures anymore. I am trying to overcome my weaknesses. I’m trying to learn to be free._

Breathing in American air felt like a weight being lifted from my chest. I got here and I didn’t burn up on the spot. God didn’t reign down to smite me for my shortcomings. Not that I believed, but whatever existed in the eternal aether must have thought me of little consequence. And although the air was not like that of my San Franciscan home, there was something realizing about it, something anticipating about it.

I got to breathe a lot of it while I was trying to get a taxi to notice me. Or one that would take me where I needed to go.  It was almost noon before one finally took me on and I was starving, but I felt as though if I did eat I would throw up on the spot. I occupied myself with music, listening to the radio the taxi driver had on.

On our way into the boonies, he asked me why I was in Louisiana. All I could say was, “I’m here to find someone that I don’t want to lose.”

He nodded in understanding. We pulled up to a small cabin surrounded by trees, on the outskirts of a rundown housing development. I paid the driver, I think he let me off a little. He told me good luck and I heard in his voice that he felt pity, but it wasn’t a sad pity more of a hopeful kind. It started to hail down sharp icy pellets of rain.

I waited on the porch for what seemed like day, but was only hours. Either isn’t better. My stomach rumbled and the Louisiana sun couldn’t cut through the sheet of dry icy air. I huddled on the steps. Rain bounced of my hair and melted into my sweater.

Then he came, pulling up in a black suburban and getting out of the passenger side. I stood up. He was understandably astonished.

“I do want to love you too, you know that—,” I blurted out, shivering in the rain, “right?”

He came up to me, “Hadley, I know, darling. Why don’t we go inside it’s torrential out here.” He tried to usher me inside. His voice full of concern and confusion.

I stopped him, “No, I have to say this. Thomas, I want to give you more than pieces of a tainted heart. I want to be able to give you the love I always believed people should receive. The kind people always gave me and I didn’t accept, because I was too stubborn to know when to let my walls down." I didn't pause in my monologue. Not for a second. It was all too important. The rain, the cold, the hunger, him. none of it was as necessary as the words spilling from my mouth.

"I know now," I said, "I know I can’t live on without you, but I am so broken and I tried so hard to fix myself for you and I can’t. Not completely. I may never be able to. And that’s not fair to you, but for as long as you’ll let me I’ll keep trying. Trying to compromise, even if you have to teach me how. I love you, Thomas. I am not perfect and I hope you can accept me that way.”

“I didn’t fall in love with you because I thought you were perfect. I fell because I knew you weren’t,” he embraced me.

And that’s all it took. That’s all I needed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost done, dudes. Two more chapters. Thanks for the Kudos. Please leave a comment if you like or hate it. I want to know.  
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Thomas carried me inside, the small cabin-like house that was his temporary home. I was chilled to the bone, wet and full of the anxiety that had brought me across an ocean. Without words he took care of me. We didn’t speak, just looked at each other, and took in what we had been missing of the other. I caressed his jawline, finding the faint scratches of beard. He traced my fingertips with the missing puzzles pieces of his own. He prompted me into the shower, taking off the wet dog scented clothing I was wearing on the way there. I let him. The stall was small. White. Thomas turned on the hot water and it burst forth from the showerhead, I started to cry again. He saw through me, and in the process of taking off his own garments to join me immediately stopped. White undershirt and boxer briefs still clinging to his body he climbed in and wrapped around me.

 _Thomas,_ I cried.

“Shh, Love. You will be okay. I won’t let you go.”

Although, he had lost some weight since I was with him last, he still felt strong. He always felt strong, the physical kind of strength that makes me feel inadequate. I can never compare to that. I can’t give that feeling of comfort back to him. The sheer wholeness in the pressure of his arms.

The softness of his t-shirt morphed into wetness as it clung to him, the outline of his pecks showing and my face pressed against them. He ran his fingers through my hair, culling out the tangles which the water had put in. Occasionally, Thomas would press his lips to my forehead.

We stayed like that until I was dry inside. I was prompted out and wrapped in a great white fluffy towel. He dried me off like a dog. Shaking the towel around my limbs and stomach then ruffled my hair. In turn I was uncovered like a wet dog, shaggy hair and deep timber smell.

Thomas was still in his wet t-shirt. I was his first priority. Why? Despite the warmth of the shower he was now shivering. I took the towel off myself, I was thoroughly dried now, and threw it on him in an attempt to convey the message. You need to be dry too. You need to be okay too. He caught it in his left hand giving me a questioning look, and then a smile. All the lines he carried spread. A smile I haven’t seen in a while. My heart did a loop-de-loop.

I reached up to shake off his hair like he did mine. The dark curls threw themselves around beneath my hands.

Then I sneezed. His grin widened. “I believe you’ve gotten yourself sick, Love,” he said, taking the blue button down from the floor to drape around me. “Go on to the living room. I’ll make us something to eat.”

Doing as I was told, I found my way to the couch. It was two seats wide and tan pleather, which was cold against my bare bottom. There was a flat screen in front of me and a window to either side. The sky was dark now, but it was still raining. Sunlight, just peeked out as it climbed down to illuminate the underside of the greyness. A blanket was put around my shoulders and then his footsteps headed away, perhaps to the kitchen. I cuddled the smooth fleece. Pulling it to cover my exposed flesh. I had on only the button down Thomas put on me, my clothing lied soaked on the bathroom floor. For a while I zoned out. Examining my surroundings and then myself, the slight chub of my thighs and stomach. I had creases there as I sat crossed legged. I sneezed again. The mucus of a cold was building up in my throat.

Thomas came back with a hot cup of tea and a bowl of soup. I tasted it. Campbell’s vegetable. The taste was so singular to them. “It’s canned. I would’ve made it for you fresh had there been time,” he said, sitting next to me. He’d put pajama pants on. His chest was bare.

“That’s okay. I’m not sure I can eat much of it anyway. Thank you, though.”

“You should eat. I imagine you haven’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know you. Better than you think I do,” his voice lowered almost to a whisper as if I were accusing him of something.

I sighed, “I’m sorry. I forget that sometimes.”

I ate what I could of the soup, wasn’t much. I felt like throwing up after not eating all day and being so messed up time zone wise. Thomas turned on the television. Some movie was on. It was called Underworld. Vampires and Werewolves and such. My eyes began to close the moment it came on. Trying to stay awake I looked like a ball balancing on a seal’s nose.

Thomas laughed at me. “Come here, Darling,” he took me in his arms and we laid down together on the couch.

Stretched out he didn’t fit on the couch. Toes, feet, ankles, hung over the edge waiting anxiously to see if they’d drop to the Aztec style rug beneath. I was curled up in him. I was frozen solid. I commandeered his warmth for my own like a parasite. The skin to skin contact helped the transfer happen faster. The blanket held in all the heat that tried getting away.

 

I woke up hours later. Thomas was sleepily staring down at me. “Morning, beautiful.”

Had I really been sleeping that long. “Don’t worry, it’s only about five am,” he answered my silent question. I yawned. I suppose the look on my face asked it for me.

Suddenly, I realized how uncomfortable he must be.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“We should go to your bed. This couch is kind of small for you.”

“I’m fine.”

I sighed, “Come on. We are not sacrificing yours for mine.” I stood up, taking the blanket with me and reached out a hand to him. “Bed, with me, now.”

“How could I refuse such a magnificent woman?” He took my hand and hoisted himself up, pulling me into him. “I am so glad you are here. I’ve never felt so lonely until I couldn’t see you whenever I wanted too.”

He kissed me and kissed me, sloppily, hungrily. We hadn’t touched each other like this in ages. Twisting our tongues into acrobatic shapes, fighting until I just let him in. Let the tip of his tongue brush across my teeth. When I first met him, I remember thinking how thin his lips looked, but they weren’t. Not at all. All the fullness was just inside, fooled by the flatness of them.

“To bed?” he breathed.

I nodded a gasping agreement. He lifted me up, my heart skipped at first. Boobs bounced, he chuckled. I held onto his neck and put marks along his jawline. I was taken to the bedroom. Three or four of his long strides and we were there. He placed me on the bed and dropped his trousers, then climbed on top of me. “It’s been so long since I’ve had you between my fingers,” he moaned, spreading my legs apart with his knees. He kissed below my ears and ran his digits through my hair.  His full weight was on me. And if an anvil being dropped on someone’s head could be felt in a good way that was how it was to be underneath him again.

He kissed me up and down. Took his time savoring me and cupping my boob in one large hand, I knew the indents they made on me.

Through gasps and moans and shrieks of pleasure he inserted himself within me. We rocked slowly, like a boat on calm seas. Everything burst and all the anxiety I had of coming here, going home, left me. Thomas was all I needed and all I wanted. The blanket I had once gone to for warmth was beneath even me and only he granted me anything. My chill replaced his heat and by the time we were done, his body wrapped around me, he was cool.

“Are you cold,” I asked.

“No,” he whispered as he gently ran tangles from my bedhead.

“You feel really cold.”

“Do I?” He responded. “I honestly don’t feel it. You’re so warm. I can’t tell.” His voice was slowing down, so were his hands. His breathing. He yawned. I glanced up at him, as much as I could, between arms and chins being in the way, and watched his eyes starting to close, but fighting it.

“I want to ask you something,” he breathed.

“Anything.”

“Do you regret him?” He asked. That was a terrible question and in its horribleness I had to answer, to not would mean yes. And I didn’t. “Or us?”

_Don’t do this to yourself, Thomas. Not when we have everything._

“No. I don’t. Either of you,” I reached up to hold his cheek in my hand, pulling my body along with me. “I used to. Not him. I never saw him that way and I don’t think I ever will. One time I did regret you, simply because I couldn’t give you all of me the way you deserved. But it isn’t like that anymore.”

“You grew up,” he said.

“I did. I grew up and I realized that there’s no point in getting angry at the world. It will never change. Things change; People change; and I’m okay with the little part of the world that I can control and that’s me and us.”

Ben will always be my home. The place my heart spent its childhood, but Thomas is where I grew up. He was the true meaning of how home wasn’t a place, but a feeling. And no matter where I was or he was, knowing that I had him made life a little less lonely. I was always alone, and was lonelier every time someone left me. My parents, Ben, they all took a piece of me with them a part that I knew I would never get back. Thomas wasn’t like that. The part of me he had wasn’t taken, it was given and whenever we were together he would give it back to me in touches and glances and foolhardy laughter. Life was complete when he was in it.

I realize now that for so many years after losing him, I was just in love with the idea of loving him. The romanticization of what Ben and I had.

“Hadley.”

“Yeah.” He was about to fall asleep. I felt it hanging on his chest.

“I want to be with you always,” Thomas exhaled. I kissed him tenderly on the lips as he drifted off.

I couldn’t fall asleep, so I observed him. Took in his features the way I used too. They seemed different somehow, more prominent. I remembered the wrinkles of his eyelids and every hair that sprung out from his eyebrows. His strong arms embodied me, hugged me like a child with a teddy bear. I took his hands in mine and held them.

His hands were chilled. Red at the knuckles and almost transparent everywhere else to where I could see the blue of his veins. The ones that gave life to his overly long fingers. I imagined all of the tissue underneath it, the small muscles that surely hands have and then the bones. My hand was made of the same material right down to the atoms and yet we were so different. Thomas had hands that could play a piano, mine got stuck on the black keys. His veins seemed so tender they could be used to string a violin or replace the faulty wires that run my heart. In a way they already did that. At night, when he put his palm over my chest and pressed against my heart, he whispered to me the pounding of my blood. He’d say, “This is your heart and this is my hand, and if your heart ever stops beating I’ll know exactly the right way to start it up again.”

I needed this. I needed him. Someone who knew how to keep my heart beating.

“I love you too, Thomas.”

 


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the End. I had a great run. Please, leave comments if you liked or didn't. I want to know!
> 
> Thanks to Kristina and much love to you from Hadley and Tom.

Epilogue:

 

Walking in, I found two naked men on my couch. I threw my keys into the dish with a sigh and a cough. “Get off my fucking couch,” I said calmly. I spend a fantastic time with Thomas in Louisiana, just the two of us Fucking the days away and spending nights watching the stars in each other’s arms, only to come home to this. If he hadn’t used all his sick days on me and felt as guilty as British Men do about lying to the director, I would have stayed longer, but the days when he was away filming left me to myself. I couldn’t deal with the thoughts that came. I would rather be lonely far away from him than lonely where I could reach him. Besides, he was coming home soon enough. The shooting was almost wrapped and we’d exchanged enough ‘I love yous’ to last us a long time.

But now, presented with _this,_ I almost wish I had stayed.

Legs splayed, a chubby black butt bounced up, and the two bodies scattered, grabbing for clothing lying in puddles of themselves. “Hadley!” Adam screeched. “You’re home.”

“Emphasis on HOME. My home. And the documented Home of the high powered editor you work for." I saw used and unused condoms lying on the floor, spilling out of a box right next to my television. I glared, "I fucking swear, Adam if you got any of your fucking sex shit on my computers I will end you."”

Luke was mumbling, “Sorry,” as he grabbed for underwear and a t-shirt, his eyes wild with embarrassment. This was on par with the Diamond Heiress Incident. “Sorry, I,” and “Sorry, We."

Luke was still stuttering. Adams shoulders relaxed, "that's all you care about. Your computer." He stood up to face me, I covered my eyes with my forearm, arms displaying apology, “I tried to call. I tried to find you, but I figured you’d fallen off the face of the earth when you didn’t answer. Or that you didn’t want to be bothered.” He thought I had gone to visit Ben.

“Adam,” I spoke purposefully, “Pants. Now.”

He glanced down, “Oh, God! Sorry.” Quickly, he reached for the blanket lying on the couch.

“Wash that. Wash it many, Many times.”

“We are sorry,” Adam realized the blanket they had been using was one that Thomas got for me. One of my favorites, that’s why it was in the living room. I used it so often. It was big and tan, and looked like a cable knit sweater.

"Why are you even here?"

"I couldn't get a hold of you so I called Luke. He informed me that you were with Tom in America..."

"So the two of you decided to do it on my couch?"

"I have flatmates."

Luke was still on the couch, looking horrified. "Adam's allergic to cats," he spit out quickly.

"Yes, I know that and?"

Adam answered for him, "Luke happens to own a large amount of cats."

I put my hands in the air. "Clean up my couch then get the fuck out of my house."

"We've not just done it on the couch."

"Adam, I swear to god if you say my bed."

"No, are you mad. Never."

"Wherever it is just--eww, sanitize it. I don’t care—sanitize everything.”

I took another second to emphasize how disgusted I was then went upstairs. There was a pair of briefs on the stairs. “Seriously,” and socks walking the floor on their way to the guest room. Just because Adam practically lived here did not mean that my house was his own personal brothel.

In my room I closed the door behind me and leaned on it. I spend two weeks with Thomas and this is what I come back too. I should’ve just stayed. I dropped my bag on the floor, and threw my coat somewhere too.

Remembering that I was going to call Tom when I got home, I looked for my phone. I found it in my bag still turned off from when Ben’s mother called.

Thomas had already texted me:

_Hope you’re home safe, Love. I miss you already._

I told him I was and that I missed him too. I can’t remember ever feeling this way. Like I had something to go home too. Like there was someone to miss that I could still see, hear, and touch. The last time I had that was before my parents died or when I still had Ben.

I sat on the bed, receiving texts from unimportant people, namely Roger, while the phone got used to being back on and in this hemisphere.

It beeped: _one not-listened to voicemail._

From Louise. Ben’s mother. I chose not to think about it. If she’d finally given up trying to reach me personally and decided to just leave a voicemail that was better. Less confrontation. Besides, I was happy. I was content with Thomas and nothing was going to change that not even Ben.

I laid back on the bed and listened.

“Hadley, Honey, I understand why you don’t want to talk to me,” she began. She sounded hoarse, trembling. “I know that you’re aware that Ben woke up from his coma a few months ago and he hoped, we all did, that you’d come see him. He asked about you every day. Told me how much he loved you and that he was sorry about how everything turned out for you. I told him that as far as I knew you were doing good: that your aunt took you London with her, that you were a modeling, I saw some of your ads in a magazine, and that you went through a rough patch after,” she paused, “but that was over now. I always kept tabs on you, you know? After Ben was hurt. You were the only connection I had,” now she really started to tear up. She was always an emotional person. Losing Ben’s dad was really hard on her.

“I know you’re busy. You’ve grown up so much. You were such a good friend to him and I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to help you after your parents passed. I just want you to know how much he loved you. He talked about you every single day. All of the stories and things you guys did that he never told me. He was doing so well and I tried so hard to get you here. I just want you to know that.

“Ben just—he was doing great. We thought that we might have been able to take him home.”

My heart stopped. I sat up.

“I was trying to wait as long as I could. I know that he’d want you to be here, but you just wouldn’t answer. I wanted to tell you this in person…really talk it out. Honey, I’m so sorry. We waited as long as we could, but California’s pretty strict about that sort of thing.”

Spit it out Louise. Just say it.

“He loved you. Please, know that. I so sorry, Hadley. Our Benjamin, he’s gone.”

The phone dropped from my hand as a fully clothed Adam walked in.

“I’m sorry about all of this—” Adam started and then he saw me. I was shaking so hard. I looked down at my hands, ghosts of what they should have been. I started hiccupping. “Hadley, what’s wrong?” His voice dripped with concern. Louise was still babbling on about something. She was crying too, old tears from an ancient voicemail.

Adam heard it and picked it up, I barely heard anything. Just a low mumbling coming from the both of them, then realization stuck, “Benjamin. Oh god, Hadley, I’m so sorry.”

His arms wrapped around me, but I didn’t want them. I wanted Thomas’s or Benjamin’s or my mom’s. I wanted hers. I wanted my mom here.

I pushed Adam off of me and stood up. I couldn’t tell you why I just did. I tried to say something to him, but my throat was tight with hiccups and my eyes blurry with tears that refused to fall. “Hadley,” he whispered. I didn’t want to hear it. I was full of grief. These tears were not the ones I shed in Louisiana. These were worse.

I threw the door open and ran down stairs. My feet fell onto every step, thudding in my ears. I passed a startled Luke and ran out the door. Adam was right behind me. I heard him explaining to Luke that something had happened.

Outside I didn’t know what to do. What did I want? Where was I supposed to go? The sound of cars, the smell of dusty rain, the dirty green that was London, I couldn’t feel any of it. All these months it had been so apparent to me. So much that I had ignored it, tried not to go outside and experience all of the noise.

I couldn’t hear it now and I wanted too. I sat on the front steps, existing, while the sun revolved around the earth, the trees thought about growing their leaves back for spring, and people drove by in their expensive cars coming home from work, picking up their kids. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

A dog barked.

It seemed so far away at first. My head was numb, like how feels to be dead tired in the daytime.

The dog barked again. I realized it was closer. A small three legged Schnauzer tied to the sapling in front of my house, one ear torn off. “Picasso.” He barked again.

I found myself kneeing next to him. He was dark grey and though his eyes seemed glazed over his tail went crazy at the scent of me. “Pablo Picasso. What are you doing here, buddy?”

I wiped the wetness from my face then scratched at the old dog’s ear and held him close. “Where’s William, boy?” I held him tightly. Why was Pablo here? William would never leave him alone. The dog barely left the house, because he couldn’t hear cars coming.

His tail got slower. I scratched his neck. “What’s this?” There was a small piece of paper attached to Pablo’s collar. William’s stout handwriting was all over it.

_Don’t turn out like me, Hadley, you have the heart of an Artist and the mind of a Genius. Don’t waste it like those before you. Take care of Pablo Picasso for me._

 

“No.”

“I meant to tell you,” Adam was there now, standing behind me. “I heard this morning that William jumped the tracks. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that he’d left Picasso out here. I would have brought him in.”

They kept dying on me. How cursed can someone be to lose everyone. I’ve gotten so used to these grey England Skies and Thomas, and everything going right. Having a love that isn’t—doesn’t feel like it’s in danger. I was happy. I was okay. Now.

“Go away, Adam. I can’t—can’t.”

“Okay, I’ll be inside if you need me.”

 

I took Pablo’s leash off the tree and scooped him up in my arms. I started walking. Pablo shifted close to me. He shivered. Was it cold out? I missed the soft humidity of Louisiana that made me wet so easily. I missed being inside Thomas’ arms where we’d hide inside the bases of each other’s warmth and listen to music. He’d say the tea here’s not as good, but it’d be alright. He would persuade me into him with his eloquence. And I finally didn’t run away from someone. I let him tell me he loved me.

“Thomas,” now the tears finally came out and my voice wobbled. “I love you. Please, don’t leave me. Don’t die on me.”

“I would never, Love. Tell me what’s wrong?”

I had called him. I was huddled in a pay phone with a decrepit old schnauzer, calling him. I’m not sure where I found the change or even the remnant telephone booth, but people were staring at the young girl crying into the receiver.

“They’re gone, Thomas. William, Benjamin, my mom and dad. I can’t—“

He shushed me. On his end people were shouting in the background, soft country music was being played on guitars. “Hadley, I love you too. So much and I know you can overcome this. You are the strongest person I know. You can make it through, I’ll help you.”

“Thomas, I need you.”


End file.
